


As If Hands Were Enough (to Hold an Avalanche Off)

by theroyalsavage



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: (And probably smut I won't lie to you), ALL THE FIRSTS, Alternate Universe - College/University, And Nico's a grumpy munchkin, Angst, Eventual Romance, First Love, First Meetings, First Time, Fluff, Humor, M/M, Slow Build, What else is new, Will's a dork I love him
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-07
Updated: 2015-06-07
Packaged: 2018-03-16 19:50:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 22
Words: 44,937
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3500744
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theroyalsavage/pseuds/theroyalsavage
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nico di Angelo has been through enough to know life doesn't always work out the way you plan. But fate is a funny thing, and, in Nico's junior year of college, it hands him salvation in the form of freckled cheeks and a smile like the sun.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Fate

**Author's Note:**

> "I wake up cold, I who  
> Prospered through dreams of heat  
> Wake to their residue,  
> Sweat, and a clinging sheet.  
> ...  
> As if hands were enough  
> To hold an avalanche off."

fate

/fāt/

_noun_

The development of events beyond a person's control, regarded as determined by a supernatural power.

 

The interesting thing about time is its consistency.

Lives are a composite made up of moments – tiny, seemingly insignificant events that pile up, one on top of another, until they’ve formed the shape of a human. Time is pliable, in a constant state of flux. One decision, one factor, is enough to tip the balance. If the music wasn’t too loud. If the girl hadn’t been cheating. If the apartments didn’t share a wall. If Olympus University didn’t offer a great pre-med program as well as have a reputation for churning out classical scholars by the busload.

If philosophy was an easier class. If the professor was less strict.

If the car hadn’t run a red light.

Do you see? Time depends, above all things, on us. And that is why Nico di Angelo did not believe in fate.

The composite of moments that made up Nico’s life didn’t feel orchestrated. It wasn’t organized or neat. In fact, if you asked him, Nico would probably say that if there really _was_ some higher power up there pulling the strings, they must’ve been pretty damn sadistic.

There was nothing particularly _particular_ about the choices Nico made that led him to Will Solace. His father wanted him to stay in Seattle and go to school near home, so he’d hopped a plane to New York and never looked back. He chose to study Latin and Greek because that was what he was good at, what he liked, and it seemed to follow logically. He moved to off-campus housing with his roommate of two years, Leo Valdez, because that was what people did their junior year. Easy, quiet, painless choices.

They changed things, though. Of course they did.

(There it is again, the interesting thing about time: every choice does.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm really excited to finally get this going, since the ideas have been banging around in my head for a long time. I'm hoping to update pretty often, barring exceptional circumstances. Once a week, maybe?  
> The title/inspiration for this fic comes from the poem The Man With Night Sweats, by Thom Gunn, which is beautiful and also heartbreaking.


	2. Initial

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Nico learns the importance of first impressions and watching where he's walking.

in·i·tial

iˈniSHəl/ 

_adjective_

Existing or occurring at the beginning.

 

“Okay, spin around and show me again.”

Nico rolled his eyes but complied, turning on the spot in the very center of his new bedroom with his tablet cradled in his arms. On the screen, Hazel Levesque, his half-sister, made a quiet cooing noise.

“It looks great, Neeks!” she exclaimed. “I’m so glad you guys are finally completely moved in. And your bedroom looks great! The paint job was definitely worth it.”

“You’re telling me,” Nico grumbled, sinking down on the bed and turning the tablet back around so his sister was looking at him again. “But sleeping on the couch was just about to kill me. I swear, if Valdez kept me up until four in the morning with that goddamn hammer _one more time_ —”

“You know you love me!” Leo’s voice issued from the hallway outside Nico’s bedroom door, closely followed by a muffled thump and a quiet, “ _Ow_.”

“Please tell me you didn’t trip over the coffee table again,” Nico called.

“…No!” Leo protested, his voice cracking up an octave or two the way it did when a professor called on him when he’d been sleeping in class. “D—don’t come out here, the table’s – I mean – it’s not… We’re all good!”

Hazel covered her mouth and giggled. The sleeves of her purple and gold Jupiter University sweatshirt were too long, and they dangled past her hands the way all her clothing used to do when the two of them were kids. “I’m glad to see you guys are settling in okay. You really need to get rid of those sheets, though.”

Nico scowled and glanced down at the bed underneath him. “What’s wrong with Batman? Batman’s classic.”

“So is Cinderella, and you don’t see Leo running around with _her_ all over his bedspread.”

“Are you calling me immature?”

She pressed a hand to her chest in mock outrage. “Who, _me_? Call my dear brother immature? Heaven forbid—”

On the screen, behind Hazel’s head, her bedroom door swung open and a tall, black-haired guy stuck his head inside. He wore a purple t-shirt the same shade as Hazel’s sweatshirt with the letters ‘SPQR’ emblazoned in gold across the chest.

“Hey, Hazel, a bunch of us are headed down to breakfast. You want in?”

She nodded. “Sure, sure, give me just one sec.”

The guy nodded and leaned a little closer, peering at the screen. He seemed oddly buoyant, and Nico was reminded violently of a video game character with idle animation that made them bounce in place. “Is that the brother we’ve heard so much about?”

“Yep, this is Nico.” Hazel gestured to her screen. “Neeks, this is Dakota. He’s the RA in my dorm.”

Sometimes, it was hard for Nico to believe that he and Hazel were related at all. Though they shared a father, Hazel was dark-skinned and bright-eyed and exceptionally beautiful. Nico was lighter than Hazel, more stubborn, with a half-permanent scowl and none of her sparkle. He shied away from social interaction naturally, because he didn’t get people and people didn’t get him. Hazel was the opposite, positive and good-natured and genuinely kind.

Case in point: if a guy with eyes like Dakota-the-RA tried to invite Nico to breakfast, he’d probably panic and open a portal to some kind of hell-dimension underneath his feet.

(Nico was pretty sure his dad, for one, wished they were more alike; Hazel was his favorite, a model student and daughter. Nico, on the other hand, wore his hair cropped in a messy undercut and got a series of tattoos up his left arm the second he turned 18, because he knew it would piss his straight-laced family off.)

Hazel and her RA were staring at him. He’d been quiet too long. Shit, shit, _shit_ —

“Nice to meet you,” Nico offered, with a half-hearted, uncomfortable smile.

“Likewise.” Dakota grinned. Nico gritted his teeth and focused on breathing. “Hazel, we’ll be leaving in a couple minutes. I’ll be waiting downstairs.” He backed out of the room, waving energetically.

When the door shut behind him, Nico shot Hazel a look.

“Oh, shut up,” she snapped. “I know what you’re thinking—”

“That somewhere, Frank Zhang is crying inside?”

She rolled her eyes. “Don’t be stupid. I’m not going to dump Frank anytime soon. To be honest, I was kind of intending to introduce Dakota to you sooner or later. He’s a classics major, too—”

“Too bouncy.” He shook his head. “I don’t think I can take that much energy, it’d be like looking at the sun for too long.”

“Blue eyes and black hair, though. I sort of that that was your type…” Nico froze and Hazel’s eyes widened. “Sorry, sorry, I didn’t mean—”

“It’s fine.” He forced a smile, though he was pretty sure she could see through it. She’d always been good at reading him. “I have to go, though, I’m late for class.”

She still looked worried, her mouth set in a tight line, but she said, “Okay, that’s fine, I should head out, too. Say hi to Leo for me, yeah?”

He scowled. “If I have to. You’re still okay, right? Still like San Francisco?”

“I love it here,” she promised him. “And you can tell Frank that, too, I know he’s worried again.”

“Okay, okay. Bye, Hazel.”

“Bye, Neeks. Be careful, okay?”

Nico didn’t ask what she meant.

 

Nico’s Ancient and Medieval Philosophy course was on Olympus University’s main campus, which was a little over a mile away from the apartment. OU was on Long Island, a secluded campus composed of a collection of marble and stone, Greek-style buildings, tucked at the base of a hill everyone called Half-Blood, though nobody knew why. There was something almost surreal about the place: bad weather seemed to skirt around it and the hills stayed viridian way too late in the season.

Late September was especially beautiful. Nico wasn’t much of an outdoorsy person, but there was something appealing about the campus, something separate and otherworldly and _new_. It wasn’t anything like the west coast, where rain seemed to fall every single day, like a promise, until your whole body was soaked through with it.

Leaving the house didn’t go quite as planned. Leo was working on rigging an ancient pink bicycle he’d found abandoned by the roadside with a motor and potentially a stereo system, and the project had taken over their living room. Nico had been forced to hunt for almost twenty minutes for his Converse, his wallet, their coffee maker, and the food bowl for Leo’s cat, Buford.

“How did you make this much of a mess _already_?” he shouted on his way out the door. He didn’t think Leo heard. He’d started messing around with some kind of wiring, and that usually meant he was going to be dead to the world for the rest of the day.

And _that_ meant that, while Nico had only been a little bit on the later side when he signed off with Hazel, he was really-frickin’-gods-be-with-me late now.

Of course.

So 11:30 found Nico half speed walking, half running to the center of campus, under a backpack that felt like it weighed approximately a billion pounds. He arrived at the quad with about two and a half minutes to go before Professor Dionysus, a too-loud, too-grumpy, middle-aged man with a probable drinking problem, locked the lecture hall doors.

He sprinted up the steps of the Arts and Sciences building. He was reaching for the door when it flew open and smacked him in the face.

He didn’t fall. That was the good news. But he did stagger back a couple steps and almost tumble backwards down the stairs. A hand closed around his arm before he could take the plunge, and then his face was pressed against a chest, hard and warm and steady and decidedly _not_ the ground at the foot of the steps. Nico’s heart was slamming in his throat, adrenaline and panic mingling in his chest.

“Oh, my gosh, are you okay, I’m so sorry, I wasn’t looking when I opened the door – oh, shit, your nose is bleeding, let me help you—”

“I’m fine,” Nico snapped, pushing himself away from his assailant and pressing a hand to his nose. It came away dripping crimson. “Oh, fucking hell.”

“I can take you to the bathroom, we can clean you up there—”

“I don’t—”

“Or I could call my friend, she’s got a car, we could drive you to the hospital—”

“That’s not—”

“I think I’ve got some gauze in my bag—”

“I’m _fine_ ,” Nico growled. His gaze snapped up, away from his bloody hand and at the guy who’d hit him.

“…I’m fine.”

His first impression was of sunshine. The man in front of him seemed to be built from light itself, all floppy blond hair and freckled cheeks and tanned skin and incredibly, shockingly blue eyes. They were wide with concern now, his hands fluttering at Nico ineffectually, gaze darting between his bag and the injury. He was taller than Nico was, a little bit broader in the shoulders, and he wore a white collared shirt with the sleeves rolled up and – oh sweet lord – a conspicuous blood stain near the left shoulder where he’d pulled Nico into his chest.

Nico had to get out of there.

 _Now_.

“Are… are you sure?” the guy asked. “You’re still bleeding.”

“It’s just blood,” Nico said shortly. “It won’t kill me.”

“Are you—?”

“I’m sure.” And he stalked away, into the building, leaving what was likely the offspring of the sun god himself standing alone on the steps.


	3. Insomnia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which bad dreams are a common occurrence and Nico needs to learn to Shake it Off.

in·som·ni·a

inˈsämnēə/ 

_noun_

Habitual sleeplessness; inability to sleep.

 

“You _what_?”

Nico scowled, looking up from the chicken he was slicing into strips to fix his friends with a glare. “Wow, that was really in sync, guys. How long have you been rehearsing?”

Behind him, Leo had moved his ‘project’ out of the living room and pushed the furniture back into position. Jason Grace and Piper McLean were on the couch now, wearing near-identical expressions of alarm. Next to Nico, Frank Zhang – who was both Jason’s roommate and Hazel’s longtime boyfriend – had paused in the middle of dicing vegetables. And in the corner, Leo was bent nearly in half, roaring with laughter.

“You seriously _broke_ your nose?” Leo wheezed. “ _Seriously_?”

“I didn’t do it on purpose.”

Jason leaned over and punched Leo (who promptly muffled his giggles with his hand), before saying, “Ignore him, Nico. What did the people at the Health Care Center say?”

“Ice it,” Nico recited evenly. “Keep my head elevated. Take acetaminophen. It won’t kill me.”

That was the second time in one day he’d said that. He was starting to think he’d be reassuring people of his own safety for the rest of time.

“But you ended up missing your class,” Frank observed.

Nico tried not to groan. “Yeah. I’ll get the notes from Connor Stoll once the swelling goes down.”

There was a collective wince at that. Travis and Connor Stoll were brothers, sharp-eyed practical jokers who were notoriously difficult to deal with. Even Leo wasn’t particularly enthusiastic about going head-to-head with the two of them.

“So did you get a look at the guy?” Piper asked, leaning forward with her elbows on her knees. “You know, the one who hit you?”

 _Did he get a look at the guy_?

Nico hadn’t been able to _stop_ seeing him since this afternoon. It was like he’d looked for too long at a bright light, and now every time he blinked, it burned on the inside of his eyelids.

“I didn’t really stay and chat.” Nico shrugged. “He had blond hair.”

It was more like golden, really. And his hands had been strong and steady on Nico’s shoulders. His eyes were big and precisely the same blue as the sky—

God, this was stupid. Nico was so _stupid_. Why couldn’t he just crush on one of the girls in the Aphrodite sorority like every other sane guy he knew? What was _wrong_ with him?

“Well, he must’ve been a real idiot,” Jason concluded. “Who doesn’t look before they open a door?”

Nico had been a lot younger when he discovered the broken pieces inside of himself. It was like being locked inside his own mind, like his programing had gone wrong or his hard-wiring was off.

“Are you sure you don’t want to try and find him? We could get him to pay for the dry-cleaning on your coat.”

As a kid, he hadn’t known what to do, who to turn to. Hazel was the only person in the world who knew how his mind worked, because the world was not built for people like Nico. There weren’t people like him in the movies. There weren’t people like him in books. Nobody told him what it meant when he started feeling _things_ for other guys; nobody even mentioned that it was a possibility.

The boys sat in class and listened to teachers explain that wanting to kiss girls was going to be both new and normal for them as teenagers. Nobody ever explained anything to Nico.

There were names for guys like Nico, and none of them were nice.

So, yeah, door boy had been hot. He’d also been a fucking moron, obviously, to not check where he was walking.

And Nico was almost definitely _not_ his type.

“You’re frowning,” Frank observed quietly, as the talk on the couch moved to an event Piper was planning with student government.

“Just thinking,” Nico said.

“Does it hurt?”

Nico jumped a little, but Frank was looking at his nose. _Stupid. What else would he have been talking about_? “Nah, I’ve got enough Tylenol in my system to last a lifetime. I barely even feel it.”

“Then what’s the problem?” He had a furrow between his eyebrows, a near identical expression to the one Hazel adopted when she was concerned.

Nico shook his head and flipped a spatula into his hand. “Worried about class, that’s all. It’s nothing.”

“Okay…”

All Nico could think was that his sister and her boyfriend had much more in common than they had any right to.

 

The dream was the same as always.

Nico was a teenager, standing on the side of the road outside the family home in Washington. It was December, freezing rain falling from a sky the color of ashes and loss.

A boy was standing in the street. His back was to Nico, but it was obvious who he was anyway, from the way his inky black hair stood up in the back and the way his sweatshirt sat on his shoulder blades. Nico had stared at those shoulders a thousand times, memorized the exact whorl in that hair.

In the distance, a car horn blared. Nico’s body filled with sudden, icy, all-consuming terror, the kind that gnaws away at the things you are from the inside out. He tried to cry out, to warn the guy in the street, but his voice was lost in the screaming of the wind, or maybe he just didn’t have a voice at all.

The car horn bawled again, closer this time. Right next to Nico’s ear. Right inside Nico’s head.

He stood frozen as a dark-haired girl with a smile like lightning came out of nowhere and knocked the boy out of the street. There was a blinding flash that seemed to consume the earth and the seas and the heavens themselves and the air filled with the copper-tangy scent of blood.

Nico’s legs unfroze and he stumbled forward. His breath came heavy, like panting, like screaming.

He turned over the girl’s broken body and his own eyes stared up at him out of her face.

 _I stay out too late – got nothin’ in my brain_.

Nico stiffened. What was that? Music?

_That’s what people say, mmmhmm. That’s what people say, mmhmmm._

It was getting louder. Louder, louder, _louder_ , pulling him in. The girl in his arms faded and he screamed her name, reaching out, but the dream was spiraling away around him, and then he was jerking awake in bed in his apartment, and the room was filled with the slightly muffled, dulcet tones of Taylor Swift.

“What the everloving fuck.”

He rolled over and looked at the illuminated alarm clock on his bedside table. Green lettering proudly proclaimed that it was just past two in the morning.

“ _Leo_ ,” Nico shouted, “turn the goddamn music off.”

“It’s not me,” Leo protested, his voice muted by the walls, just loud enough to be heard over the baseline. “I think it’s coming from upstairs.”

“ _What_ ,” Nico repeated, “the everloving _fuck_.”

 

An hour and a half later, Nico wasn’t really sure what he had expected.

Maybe he’d hoped that after Shake it Off played for the third time in a row, the dickhead upstairs would get sick of keeping the entire building awake. Unfortunately, instead of turning it the fuck _off_ , they’d moved on to playing a series of extremely sad, sappy slow songs that Nico didn’t recognize.

And now they were singing along.

That was without a doubt the worst part, because even though the singing was much quieter than the actual music itself, whoever lived in the apartment directly above Nico and Leo clearly could not carry a tune to save a life.

Nico was going to kill a man.

At a quarter to four, Shake it Off came back on and Nico’s tether snapped.

He yanked socks on and stormed out of his bedroom, barely remembering to grab a key before he was stomping into the hallway and up a flight of stairs.

He banged on the door for about half a minute before he heard footsteps rushing closer. He was about to slam his fist on it again when it swung open under his hand, and he barely stopped himself from clocking the inhabitant of apartment five across the face.

“Is there any particular reason,” Nico hissed, “that you are trying to make me _lose_ my _fucking_ mind, or—”

His voice died in his throat.

Because the man who was staring at him with wide, watery, too-blue eyes was the same man who’d nearly split his skull open this afternoon.

“Nose boy!” door boy hiccuped, surprised.

And then he broke down sobbing.

 

And that was how Nico di Angelo ended up with a crying stranger on his couch at four in the morning, making tea and wondering when exactly his day had gone so entirely wrong.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me too, William. Me too.


	4. Solace

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which acquaintances are made and the end begins for poor Nico.

sol·ace

ˈsäləs/

_noun_

Comfort or consolation in a time of distress or sadness.

  

The most galling thing about the whole situation, Nico thought, wasn’t that he’d only gotten about three and a half hours of fitful sleep in. It wasn’t that he was being forced to boil water and dig a couple teabags that were probably from the Paleolithic age out of the back of the pantry to try and console a complete stranger. It wasn’t even that he now had Shake It Off digging into the back of his mind, and he knew approximately seven of the words, three of which were in the title.

The most galling thing was that he’d never changed out of his pajamas, which consisted of an ancient black t-shirt with a huge hole near the collar and a skull and crossbones splayed proudly across the chest, coupled with a pair of flannel pants he’d stolen from Jason, so large you couldn’t see his feet.

And Door Boy still looked like he’d descended straight from the heavens, despite his red-rimmed eyes and runny nose. If anything, the messy bedhead look _worked_ for him, and the irritation in his eyes just made them look – if it was possible – even _more_ blue.

He wore a fuzzy pink blanket Nico had dug out of the closet wrapped around his shoulders and a careworn, contrite expression.

Resigned to the way this night looked like it was going to go, Nico removed the kettle from the stove and poured some of the boiling water into a mug. He put the teabag in and crossed the room to where Door Boy perched cautiously on a corner of the couch.

“You can sit back,” Nico said, holding the tea out. “You won’t break it.”

The watery, grateful smile he received in return was enough to put a man out of commission for days.

 _What had Nico done to deserve this hell_?

“You’ve got a nice place,” Door Boy said half-heartedly. He blew some of the steam away from the tea and took a tentative sip. “Do you live alone?”

“Nah, but my roommate sleeps like the dead. I was pretty stunned your music even woke him up at all, to be honest.”

“I’m sorry,” he sniffed, looking crestfallen. “This is twice in one day I’ve bothered you.”

“You’re damn right it is.”

“Is your nose all right?” The way this guy was appraising him made Nico uncomfortable. His eyes were sharp, alert, intelligent; Nico felt like he was searching for flaws, cracks in Nico’s armor, and making note in his mind like some kind of bizarre therapist.

Breaking eye contact, Nico turned and pulled an apple out of the fridge, hoisting himself up to sit on the countertop and resting his chin on his free hand. He took a bite of the fruit and said around it, “My nose is fine, it’s my 8 o’clock class tomorrow morning I’m concerned about. Why on god’s good earth would you think it was a good idea to blast pop music at the ass-crack of dawn?”

Door Boy looked heartbroken, his head drooping like a scolded puppy, messy blond hair falling into his eyes. Nico immediately regretted his harshness, which was both inexplicable and unheard of; he’d hard-wired himself years ago to stop caring what strangers thought of him.

“My girlfriend was cheating on me,” Door Boy finally offered.

“Oh,” Nico said.

There was a bad taste in Nico’s mouth that he couldn’t explain. He took a more aggressive bite of the apple in his hand.

“I caught her with him,” the other continued, his gaze on his hands, clasped in his lap. He seemed so small all of a sudden, hunched down under the blanket around his shoulders. “She cancelled our date, said she wasn’t feeling well, so I went over to her place and brought some cough drops and stuff this afternoon. She never locks the door, so I just went in, and they… they were—”

Nico held his hands up. “Okay, yeah, I get the picture. No specifics, please.”

Door Boy flinched. “Sorry,” he said again. "God in heaven, my hands are still shaking. See?"

He reached up and took Nico's hand, which sent an electric current down his spine.

“How long were you together?” he asked, quickly removing himself  from the blond's grip.

(His hands were large and warm and calloused and  _hell_ if Nico didn't want to touch them again.)

“Only a month and a half, but I still – I feel like such an _idiot_ , you know? She played me. Nobody’s ever _used_ me like that before.” He looked up at Nico, something frenzied and desperate in his eyes. “I don’t know why I’m telling you this. I guess I just… I needed to talk to someone. I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine,” Nico said. “Stop apologizing.”

Why did he say that?

It wasn’t fine.

Nothing was fine.

Not even close.

He sniffed and attempted another tremulous smile. “You’re pretty nice, Death Boy.”

Nico shot upright. “ _What_ did you call me?”

“Death Boy. You know, because of your shirt?”

 _That goddamn shirt_ —

“…No? All right. I’ll think of something else.”

“Or you could just call me by my name,” Nico suggested, trying to quash the annoyance rising in his chest.

“I don’t know your name,” he pointed out. Then he grinned, and his smile was a little different this time. Less depressed, more… _pointed_.

This was so dangerous.

“Nico di Angelo.”

“Will Solace.”

“ _Really_? Will _Solace_? That sounds like a superhero secret identity from some cheesy comic.”

Will snorted. “Yeah? Well, Nico di Angelo isn’t much better. Italian-pop-singer-turned-superspy much?”

“You’d know all about pop singers, wouldn’t you, Mr. I-Listen-To-Taylor-Swift-at-three-AM?”

The tips of Will Solace’s ears turned bright pink ( _Goddamn it, di Angelo, that was not_ cute _, this guy’s a fuckin’ moron—_ ) and he protested, “It was a weak moment! Kick a guy while he’s down, why don’t you?”

“There was some other singers, too – did I hear One Direction a couple times?”

Will’s face flushed to match his ears and he flung one of the couch pillows at Nico, who was laughing too hard to prevent it from hitting him in the face.

“My _nose_ , Solace—”

“Oh, shit, I forgot, I’m sorry—!”

 

The next morning, Nico woke up to the sound of Leo rummaging through the refrigerator. He was curled into a ball on the couch, the pink blanket Will Solace had been using last night tucked around him. There was a scent clinging to it, something like dewdrops and summer and sunshine.

Had he seriously fallen asleep with a _stranger_ in the apartment?

God, maybe the sheer amounts of undiluted stupid around him were starting to rub off.

“That was weird with the guy upstairs, huh?” Leo observed around the piece of toast he held between his teeth. He bit off some and chewed before asking, “Did you end up talking to him?”

“A bit,” Nico said slowly. “He’d broken up with his girlfriend.”

“What a tragedy.” Leo rolled his eyes and took another bite of toast, disappearing into his bedroom.

It wasn’t until Nico got up and retrieved a glass of orange juice that he noticed a note tucked underneath the empty mug from last night. It was scribbled in absolutely atrocious, barely legible handwriting on the back of what looked like a Starbucks receipt.

_Death Boy – you fell asleep and I didn’t want to wake you. Thanks for the tea and for listening, and I really am sorry about your nose and your good night’s sleep. I owe you one._

_Or two._

_Or six._

_(We can work that out later.)_

_–Will_

Underneath his name, he’d written a phone number.

This, Nico thought, was not how one-night stands were supposed to go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so so so soooo much to everyone who's read and commented already - you guys are so sweet and your comments really inspire me to keep going.  
> More 4 AM pillow fights to come, I promise.  
> (Probably tears, too, but we won't worry too much about that.)


	5. Viscous

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There is a different consistency to nightmares.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "I have been one acquainted with the night.  
> I have walked out in rain - and back in rain.  
> I have outwalked the furthest city light."  
> -Robert Frost (Acquainted with the Night)

vis·cous

ˈviskəs/ 

_adjective_

Having a thick, sticky consistency between solid and liquid; having a high viscosity.

 

Moments like the ones that composed Nico’s childhood are viscous.

They cling to skin and clothing, catch in throats and dig under nails like dirt, glue. These are the memories that make your chest feel cold when somebody talks about their sister. These are the memories that make your vision turn red when you see a father arguing with their small son on a street corner. Because you had a sister once, and that little boy has hair like yours, and your mouth is still thick with the taste of the things you lost.

You try to wash them away but they stay cupped between your hands like something breathing, something beating.

Nico didn’t think about growing up very often. He’d trained himself not to, to walk away from problematic conversations and turn away from arguments on the street. When it was dark, though, during that funny time when it’s not really night but it’s not really morning either, when he was sleep-deprived and irritable from hours spent pouring over Bio notes, it was harder to self-regulate. To differentiate between what was dreams and what was made of the things he used to be.

His memories smelled like cinnamon rolls and fabric softener, but they also smelled like burning rubber and blood dripping onto a rain-wet sidewalk.

He could remember a swing set, the worn-out, brightly painted kind that sits on school playgrounds. He could remember being pushed from behind and jumping off, and the feeling of flying that followed.

For a second, Nico was more than himself. He was Superman, a magician, descended from the gods.

And then he landed. And he hit too hard and he hurt his elbow and it was funny; you can have the flying if you can take the falling. Nico was never sure he could.

He could remember Sunday dinners, Italian style, his whole family around a table laden with pasta and garlic bread and the sound of ringing laughter.

He could remember what a smile looked like on his father’s face. It sat oddly there, juxtaposed against image after image of later years, when Hades di Angelo stopped laughing and stopped smiling and stopped talking to Nico at all.

He could remember playing in his bedroom, an old trading card game featuring the Greek gods. A girl had been seated across from him, and her eyes were burned into his mind; they are his own, but done right. There is none of the quiet bitterness, none of the shadow. Hers are dark like his, deep-set like his, but full of life, joy, and something lovely and warm and unique to _her_.

He could remember screams. Smoke, burning as he choked it down instead of air.

Flashing lights, blue and red and the color of cost.

A car, the windshield smashed, the varnish stained with something dark.

The memories had mass. Jagged points. Thick like water, thick like blood.

(Push them down, push them down, keep moving, keep moving.)

Sometimes, Nico thought he would asphyxiate beneath the weight of them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can still write emotional stuff, I promise. It's not just humor. I am a serious writer. Who writes serious things. See? See? SEE?  
> (Please love me.)


	6. Torn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Nico is burned out and Will is persistent.

torn

tôrn

_adjective_

In a state of uncertainty between two conflicting options or parties.

 

The day after his pseudo-sleepover with a blond idiot who’d assaulted him with a door, Nico made what was arguably the worst decision of the week and Skyped his little sister.

Call him crazy, but he was getting a little bit sick of being laughed at.

“It’s not funny,” he grumped. He would’ve glared at her, but she was laughing so hard she’d disappeared from her laptop camera’s view; only the crown of her flyaway curls was visible. “The asshole _broke_ my _nose_. Where’s your familial loyalty? Some concern would be nice.”

“You look like you got in a bar fight,” Hazel choked out between giggles. “Dad would pass out.”

Nico inspected himself in the tiny box at the bottom of the screen that showed his own face. The swelling on his nose had gone down a bit, leaving him with angry crimson cheekbones and a pair of really spectacular black eyes, deep purple shot through with violent green.

“I look like a delinquent,” he agreed.

“You look _metal_.”

He snorted. “Maybe I should get some facial piercings and dye my hair, too. I’ve already got the tattoos and the undercut. Dad would probably have a conniption.”

Hazel came back onto the screen, still breathless. “Don’t you think you should at least _try_ to get along with him?”

“Don’t you think he should tryto be less of an enormous dick?”

“Nico—”

“We were talking about my stupid neighbor, remember?” he interrupted. Hazel opened her mouth like she was going to protest, so he said, in a gentler voice, “Hazel. I can’t do this with you right now, okay?”

She hesitated, then nodded. “All right. Fine. Finish your story. After you brought him down to your room, what happened?”

Nico shrugged. “I don’t know. Nothing, really. He apologized about twenty times, talked about his girlfriend—” Hazel made a face “—and then I fell asleep.”

“You said he left you his number.”

Nico’s face felt warm. Across the room, Leo’s miniature tabby kitten, Buford, nosed his way inside through the door, which was slightly ajar. Instead of meeting his sister’s eyes, Nico reached down to stroke him. Buford purred against his hand, leaping up onto the bed to curl up at Nico’s side.

“It didn’t mean anything,” Nico said quietly. “He was trying to be nice.”

He could practically _hear_ the scowl in Hazel’s voice. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah, Hazel, I’m pretty sure. I’ve got quotes from Dante’s _Inferno_ tattooed on my forearms and he was probably born surrounded by a cloud of sparkles and rainbow-colored sunshine. We don’t… I don’t know. We don’t mix right.”

“It’s just one quote.”

“What?”

“Only on _one_ forearm.”

“Hazel.”

“In Italian.”

“Hazel.”

“And it’s really small, actually—”

“ _Hazel_ , listen to me. It’s. Not. Gonna. Happen.”

She sighed and shook her head. “You could call him and find out, you know. It couldn’t hurt.”

“I’m not gonna call him. No _way_ am I gonna call him.”

Her mouth fell open. “So you’re just going to throw the number out? Never speak to him again?”

Buford was trying to shimmy up Nico’s arm so he could perch on his shoulder. Nico focused on attempting to keep the cat from clawing him. “That’s the plan.”

“ _Nico_ —”

“Look, I don’t even _want_ to call him, all right? Will Solace may be some kind of blond-freckled-surfer-pretty-boy, but that doesn’t make up for his chronic lack of brain cells.”

“Oh-ho,” Hazel said. “So he’s pretty, then?”

Nico couldn’t win.

 

After that, a week passed relatively uneventfully.

Leo set his ‘project’ on fire in the living room twice. Jason broke his glasses and dragged Nico to LensCrafters to help him pick a new pair. The cat tore a hole in one of the couch cushions, Nico got an A on an essay he’d written for Latin, and he bought Leo’s favorite chips at the store because he had a few extra bucks and he owed the idiot a favor.

September was drawing to a close already; the air tasted of spice and damp leaves and the musty, soil-scent of autumn (unheard-of in the perpetual mild wetness of the west coast). The wind had a bite to it now, not quite cold but not warm anymore, either. The trees contained hints of color, a promise of the explosion of oranges and yellows and violent pinks that October would sweep along with it.

See? Relatively uneventful.

 _Normal_.

So why did he feel so goddamn restless?

He didn’t have much time to think about it. The last Friday night in September found him, not curled up in his bed watching Netflix but sitting alone at a workspace in the library, stiff-backed, irritable, and fidgety. His Intro to Biology textbook, an enormous binder, and his laptop all sat open on the table in front of him.

And he was pretty sure he looked just about ready to kill a man.

The YouTube personality on the screen of his computer said something unintelligible about prophase and interphase. Instead of rewinding the video for the fourth time in as many minutes, Nico yanked his headphones out of his ears and slammed his head down on the desk.

“This is going to kill me,” he moaned into the textbook. “This is how I die.”

“I hope not. ‘Done in by studying’ would look absolutely horrific on a tombstone.”

Nico jerked upright and was half on his feet before he recognized the person who’d slid into the seat across the table.

“I think the swelling on your nose has gone down a bit,” Will Solace observed.

This was the first time Nico had seen him in clothing that wasn’t covered in either blood or chocolate ice cream and his first thought was, _Wow, blond-freckled-surfer-pretty-boy really wasn’t that far off base_.

Will’s t-shirt was aggressively, almost _luminescently_ orange, paired with khaki shorts and a leather necklace strung with a couple mismatched clay beads. He looked like he’d been painted with a pallet that contained only the warm tones of the color wheel.

His eyes crinkled up at the corners as he smiled.

If summer were a person, it would probably look a lot like Will Solace.

“You know, Death Boy, you look pretty intimidating with the black eyes and all. Between that and the tattoos and the Mohawk—”

“It’s an undercut,” Nico snapped.

“—You could join a motorcycle gang or something. Or start your own!” He held his hands straight out in front of him and closed an eye like he could see the words up in lights already. “Nico’s Angels.”

“That sounds like a shitty boy band.”

Will’s smile grew larger. He had the kind of smile that felt natural, like truth, the kind that wrinkled the bridge of his nose and made the whole room look brighter.

 _So fuckin’ annoying_.

Nico felt like banging his head on the table again.

“You know, you never called me back. I was a little hurt.”

Nico pulled his notebook closer and began to scribble what he could remember from the video in it (which wasn’t much). “I didn’t call you back,” he said, “because hanging out with a guy who sings along to pop ballads at three in the morning would damage my street cred.”

Will raised an eyebrow. “You have street cred?”

“No. So I _really_ can’t afford to damage it.”

Will pouted. Nico fought back the urge to laugh.

“Don’t mess around, you’ll hurt my fragile masculine feelings.” Will jumped up and down in his seat a little bit. “Let me buy you dinner. To make up for busting your nose and your eardrums.”

 _Let me buy you dinner_.

Nico hated that. The way Will said that like it was easy. Simple. It wasn’t.

 _I’m not like you_ , he wanted to scream. _You and your stupid grin and your stupid freckles and your stupid cheating girlfriend. I don’t want the things you want, okay?_

 _If you knew, you wouldn’t_ want _to buy me dinner._

“You can make up for busting my nose and eardrums by leaving me alone to study,” he said.

Will looked affronted. His mouth dropped open and he pressed a hand to his chest. He had nice hands. “You’d rather study than go get food?”

“Absolutely.” When Will didn’t move, Nico prompted, “You can go away now.”

“Are you always this grumpy?”

“Are you always this _annoying_?”

Will shook his head and leaned closer like they were sharing a secret. Nico could count the individual freckles on the bridge of his nose. He smelled good, warm and masculine.

“No, no, no. You are I are gonna be friends, Nico di Angelo. You’ll see.” Then his eyes brightened and he said, “I have an idea.”

“Wow, no kidding? It’s a miracle!”

Will punched Nico on the shoulder. “Don’t be mean. I’m going to tutor you.”

Nico blinked at him. “You’re… what?”

Will groaned and grabbed Nico’s textbook, shaking it in front of the shorter boy’s face. “In Bio. I’m going to tutor you. I’m great at this stuff, trust me. I’m pre-med.”

Nico opened his mouth to tell him to go away again.

“Back before I sat down, you looked like you were close to stabbing someone,” Will said. “This material can be really hard if you don’t have anyone to talk about it with. Let me help you. Please?”

He should've said no.

He should've grabbed his stuff right then and there, told Will to leave him the fuck alone, headed home, and asked Leo if he remembered this material from when he took the class last year.

He should've done what he promised Hazel he'd do and lose Will’s number. Throw it out. Never see him again.

He shouldn’t have been considering it.

He shouldn’t have  _wanted_ to see Will Solace again.

“…Are you sure you want to do that?” he asked, taking his textbook out of Will’s hands.

Will beamed at him. “Absolutely.”

Good God.

Maybe cell division wasn’t going to be the thing to kill him after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> RIP in pieces, di Angelo.
> 
> Thank you thank you thANk YOu to everyone who's been leaving Kudos and commenting. You're all so sweet and inspiring, a million virtual hugs for all of you.


	7. Crooked

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Nico is painfully socially inept and Will is (not) smooth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “If you ask me, two’s a whole lot lonelier than one.  
> …  
> Oh, how the mighty fall in love.”  
> -Fall Out Boy (The Mighty Fall)

crook·ed

ˈkro͝okəd/ 

_adjective_

1\. Bent or twisted out of shape or out of place.

2. (informal) Dishonest or illegal.

 

In the weeks that followed, Nico sort of felt like a dam inside him had broken.

He’d promised Hazel he was going to lose Will’s number. He’d promised _himself_ he was going to stay away.

No more messing around with things that would just get him hurt.

It turned out, though, that Will was a pretty decent teacher. He _was_ really good at the material they were covering in Bio, plus, he was enthusiastic and patient. Good-natured. Quick to laugh, quick to let mistakes go.

Nico didn’t really know how it happened, but the walls he had built up around himself broke like a storm, like waves on a shore. Before he fully understood what was happening, the two were seeing each other most every day, to study or grab food or – once – watch movies, when Will found out that Nico had never seen a single installment of the _Lord of the Rings_ trilogy.

Nico got his best grade yet on his Bio test that Friday. When he told Will, the taller boy swept him into a hug, and Nico’s head fit precisely into the curve of Will’s shoulder and he smelled like summer and soap and Nico was so, so screwed.

(Something new to be afraid of: that Will would notice Nico’s face heating up when their hands brushed or their shoulders touched or he smiled.)

It was bemusing and infuriating. Will seemed to get along quickly and easily with everyone he met, so why was he wasting his time on Nico?

Will got along with Leo. The first time he came over to the apartment under normal, not-the-middle-of-the-night conditions, Leo had been messing around with the TV remote to try and make it work on the lights and ceiling fan.

“That’s really awesome,” Will had enthused, when Leo tested it and every bulb in the apartment made a weak, diseased-sounding crackle and flickered out. “How did you do that? Can you show me?”

“You bet your ass I can,” Leo had responded, equally enthusiastically, and Nico lost both his tutor and his roommate for almost a half an hour.

Will got along with Jason. The three of them ran into each other at the dining hall one morning, and Will commented ecstatically on Jason’s Fall Out Boy t-shirt.

“Thought you only listened to pop music,” Nico commented evenly.

“That’s only when I’m sad.” Will attempted to elbow him in the ribs and Nico dodged neatly. “ _From Under the Cork Tree_ is one of my favorite albums ever.”

Jason’s eyes lit up and suddenly Nico was surrounded by a compare-and-contrast session between old and new albums, as well as a commentary on the band’s similarities to All Time Low and Panic! at the Disco.

(“What music _don’t_ you like?” Nico asked him later, when Jason went to join Piper and the two of them were alone.

He shrugged and smiled. “There’s something to like about everything.”

Nico didn’t think he’d ever heard a more _Will_ response.)

Will got along with random strangers he met on the sidewalk, people in his classes and the people who volunteered with him at the Student Health Center on the weekends.

Will even got along with _Hazel_ , who he met once, over the phone, when she called Leo in a panic about a broken laptop. She bullied Nico into sending her a Snapchat of the two of them later, and sent him about fifty text messages in response – all in caps lock – about how good-looking he was.

Somehow, Nico felt like he was losing a war he hadn’t known he was enlisted in.

 

Nico cultivated moments during those days. He kept them pressed close to his chest, cradled in his arms. He memorized things – little things, tiny things: the way you could find constellations in Will’s freckles, the callouses on his thumb and ring finger from holding pens and scalpels and other surgical tools, the slight, just-barely-there gap between his front teeth.

Will liked questions. Well, no, that wasn’t quite true. Will liked _knowing_ things. Questioning wasn’t the point; discovery was.

What’s your favorite color?

How tall are you?

How much frickin’ black clothing do you _own_?

Where are you from?

Little things, tiny things.

If Nico didn’t know better, he would almost think Will was collecting moments, too.

They were sitting on Nico’s bed late one evening, a pint of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream in each of their hands, when Will spotted a framed picture of Nico and Hazel in front of the Parthenon. It was on his desk, behind a pile of textbooks, and Will set his ice cream aside, got up, and lifted the photograph close to his nose.

“Is that Greece?” he asked. “That’s incredible! When did you go to Greece?”

“We’ve been a couple times,” Nico said, careful, slow. “My dad was born in Italy, but his mom’s side of the family is all Greek. A bunch of them still live there, so we visit occasionally.”

“Lucky you. We don’t have any extended family overseas. Well, we probably _do_ , but we don’t, like, talk to them, you know? I don’t even really know what nationality I am.” He hesitated, glanced down at the dusting of freckles on his arms, and said, “Probably Irish.”

Nico remembered that picture. He was in his sophomore year in high school, and they’d gone to visit his great-grandparents over April break. The house had smelled like mothballs and old tea leaves, so they’d spent a lot of time at their neighbor’s villa. They had a teenage son around Nico’s age. His name was Eros and his eyes were deep and creamy and dark like chocolate.

That spring was the first time he’d ever kissed a boy. Eros tasted like the food they’d had for dinner and something quiet and cloying and shameful.

Will was still talking, about how he’d always wanted to go to Greece, and how his family always had too many kids and not enough cash, and how the beachfront town in Southern California where he’d grown up was nice enough that a vacation wasn’t really needed.

Nico wondered what _Will_ would taste like, then hated himself for wondering.

“Oi, are you listening to me, Death Boy? How old were you in the photo?”

He hesitated, then said, “Sixteen, I think.”

“Mini Nico!” Will cooed. “So _cute_!”

“I was not _cute_ ,” Nico grumbled. “And I look pretty much the same now as I did then.”

“Guess you’re still cute, then,” Will said, his back still facing Nico as he peered at the picture.

Nico choked on air.

There was a heavy, loaded silence, as Nico struggled to keep his breathing even, quiet. He was pretty sure his face was about ready to catch fire. “Is that your sister with you?” Will asked eventually, a little too fast and a little too loud. “The one I talked to? Hazel, right?”

“Yeah, that’s Hazel.” Nico’s voice still sounded weird. Oh, God, oh, God, please don’t turn around please don’t turn around—

“One sister, then. I’m jealous. I had _three_. And a brother.”

What came next, Nico probably should’ve seen coming. It had been long enough – he’d had enough of these talks – he was so accustomed to dodging that particular question. It should’ve been obvious.

“What about you? Do you have any other siblings?”

Oh. _Oh_.

_Screaming, sobbing, rain falling like tears from thick, heavy, soot-stained clouds. The owner of a twisted, mangled car, on his hands and knees, on the pavement. “Just one drink,” he protested. “It was just one drink.”_

_A hand closed on Nico’s shoulder, and sea-green eyes met his own._

_Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry._

_Gone, gone, gone._

“No.” He cut Will off. His voice came out harsher than he intended it to, low and guttural and furious. Blue eyes, wider than usual, landed on his face. He felt them like a physical touch. His gaze stayed trained on the book in his lap. “It’s just Hazel and me.”

The words burned in his mouth. They felt hateful, like lying.

“All right,” Will said slowly. Nico could feel his eyes still. It was probably that same stare he’d given him the first time they talked. His ‘doctor’ look, digging for flaws, adding them up and keeping a tally. “Hey, are you—”

“I’m fine,” Nico snapped.

“Oh.” Will sounded smaller than usual. Nico wanted to look up, to attempt a smile, to apologize and tell him that it wasn’t his fault, nothing was his fault. It was Nico, all Nico, too fucked up to have a friend like Will, broken and battered and built from mismatched parts.

He said nothing. Will sat back down on the bed, and the silence between them was something living.

“How are you coming on that problem set?” he asked quietly, after awhile, and Nico finally looked up.

There was a flush to his cheeks, something sad in his eyes, and Nico had never been more furious with himself.

_I’m sorry. You deserve better._

_Why, why, why do you waste your time on me?_

“I’m stuck on number eight,” he said. “I don’t get how the bonds form.”

Will leaned over to point out the mistakes he’d made, and before long his voice was back to normal, the blush had faded from his cheeks, and the smile was back on his face, but there was still that something sad clinging to his eyes, and Nico wished to God he hadn’t been the one to put it there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This got angstier than I intended it to, I apologize.  
> Please please please ignore all the FOB references in this chapter. I'm such a huge dork I can't help it.


	8. Harmony

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which texts are exchanged and harmony is achieved.

har·mo·ny

ˈhärmənē/

_noun_

1\. The combination of simultaneously sounded musical notes to produce chords and chord progressions having a pleasing effect.

2\. Agreement or concord.

 

TO: Solace, 10:23 PM

_Um. Hey._

TO: Solace, 10:23 PM

_Sorry I snapped at you earlier. I just… I don’t get along with my family very well. There’s some not-so-pleasant history. I shouldn’t have taken it out on you, though, that was dumb._

TO: Solace, 10:28 PM

_I understand if you’re not talking to me. I wouldn’t talk to me either._

TO: Solace, 10:34 PM

_I suck at dealing with people. It’s not like it’s special for you._

TO: Solace, 10:34 PM

_OKAY, SHIT, THAT CAME OUT WRONG. I MEANT IT WASN’T YOUR FAULT._

TO: Solace, 10:34 PM

_I didn’t mean that you’re not special._

TO: Solace, 10:39 PM

_Fucking hell. At least send one of those stupid emojis to let me know you’re alive up there._

 

FROM: Solace, 10:40 PM

¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

FROM: Solace, 10:40 PM

_like that?_

FROM: Solace, 10:41 PM

_don’t let me interrupt ur groveling tho. this is the most fun ive had all day_

 

TO: Solace, 10:42 PM

_…_

TO: Solace, 10:42 PM

_I really am sorry. I’m such a loser._

 

FROM: Solace, 10:43 PM

_ur not a loser. ur fine, Nico. were fine._

FROM: Solace, 10:43 PM

_so it was abt ur family then? i kinda thought_

FROM: Solace, 10:43 PM

_nvm_

 

TO: Solace, 10:43 PM

_What? What did you think?_

 

FROM: Solace, 10:44 PM

_it’s stupid_

 

TO: Solace, 10:44 PM

_Tell me anyway._

 

FROM: Solace, 10:45 PM

_i thought u were angry bc i called u cute_

 

TO: Solace, 10:46 PM

_Oh._

TO: Solace, 10:46 PM

_No. That’s not it._

 

FROM: Solace, 10:47 PM

_good_

 

TO: Solace, 10:47 PM

_Good?_

 

FROM: Solace, 10:48 PM

_u know. good. expression of contentment? people say it when theyre happy? this ringing any bells, death boy?_

 

TO: Solace, 10:49 PM

_How many times do I have to tell you not to call me that, dumbass?_

 

FROM: Solace, 10:53 PM

(°_°) _??? whatever do u mean?_

 

TO: Solace, 10:54 PM

_You know what I mean, Solace._

 

FROM: Solace, 10:55 PM

_oh, riiiiight, sorry death boy_

 

TO: Solace, 10:55 PM

_You know what? I take it back. Apology rescinded. I’m no longer sorry. Go back to giving me the silent treatment, you expired coupon._

 

FROM: Solace, 10:56 PM

_expired coupon?_

 

TO: Solace, 10:58 PM

_Did I fucking stutter?_

 

FROM: Solace, 10:58 PM

_watch the language! kids these days…_

TO: Solace, 10:58 PM

_Piss off._

FROM: Solace, 11:00 PM

(ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧ _love u 2~_

FROM: Solace, 12:13 AM

_goodnight Nico_

TO: Solace, 1:05 AM

_Night, Will._

[THIS MESSAGE FAILED TO SEND. TAP TO TRY AGAIN.]

Like a miracle, a sign from the gods, Nico di Angelo and Will Solace found an uneasy symbiosis.

(Symbiosis – that was a word Will taught Nico during one of their tutoring sessions. He’d reached across the table and grabbed Nico’s hand with his own, slightly larger, freckled one. Their fingers twined together, and Will talked about organisms living in close proximity, about mutual benefit and physical contact. All Nico heard was white noise, the timbre of Will’s voice reverberating in his chest like a baseline from far away.

His heart felt thicker, larger than usual. There was something blocking his airway, making it harder to breathe.

Will smiled at him and Nico grumbled, and the feeling in his chest was stupid, all-encompassing, _warm_. Fire and sunlight and summer.

Mutual benefit indeed.)

Nico still spent most of his time at home. He still holed up in his bedroom, emerged reluctantly for food or when Jason and Piper came over or when Leo blew something up. But there was something marginally less painful about leaving the apartment now. Something quiet, subtle. Hard to place. Harder to explain.

He found himself scanning the streets for blond hair and neon t-shirts on the way into campus for classes. And when he heard his name being shouted from across the street, he didn’t put his head down and keep walking like he used to.

“Do you know,” Jason said one night from where he perched on the countertop in Nico’s apartment, a piece of pizza in one of his hands, “I saw Nico _smile_ at a _stranger_ the other day?”

Piper choked a little on the food in her mouth. When she finished coughing, she wheezed, “ _Our_ Nico? _This_ Nico? Are you _sure_?”

Nico glared at her, though the effect was probably somewhat diminished by the pizza sauce staining the corners of his mouth. “I didn’t smile,” he said. “I nodded. That’s not the same thing.”

“There was mouth movement,” Jason said, brandishing his slice in Nico’s direction. “I saw it.”

“Mouth movement isn’t a smile.”

“Who was it?” Piper demanded.

“Aaron something?” Jason raised an eyebrow at Nico over the rims of his glasses. He reminded Nico violently of a very large, very blond eagle. “Alex? I think I had a class with him freshman year…”

“Austin,” Nico said. “His name is Austin. He’s Will’s roommate.”

“Oh,” Piper said, and then, “Oh- _ho_.”

“You’ve been spending a lot of time with this Will fellow recently,” Jason said. “You’re not going to dump us for him, are you?”

“We’re not _getting married_ ,” Nico grumbled, taking an aggressive bite of his food. “He’s helping tutor me. Nobody’s getting dumped.”

Piper rolled her eyes. “I thought you said you liked him, Jace?”

“Of course I liked him. What’s not to like? Even _Nico_ likes him, and Nico doesn’t like _anybody_.”

Nico’s face felt hot. “I don’t like him.”

“Then why do you spend so much time with him, hmm? Oh, wait, I know. Because you like him.” Jason waved his pizza and nodded sagely like he’d said something immeasurably wise.

“There’s no shame in admitting you made a friend.” Piper pushed her hair out of her face, tucking the feather she’d threaded into it behind her ear. “You don’t need to keep up appearances with us, Nico.”

_You don’t need to keep up appearances with us, Nico._

Hazel would have a field day with that sentence if she were here. _See, Neeks?_ she’d say. _Jason is one of your best friends, and we’ve known Pipes for years. They’re safe, aren’t they?_

_Wouldn’t it make you feel_ better _to come out to them?_

What a stupid phrase, ‘come out.’ Nico was never _inside_ of anything. ‘Coming out’ made it sound like he was doing something grand, magnificent, casting off chains and finally rising to his rightful place in the world. But that wasn’t what telling Hazel had felt like. Not even a little bit.

He was just… _different_ , operating on an incorrect frequency. An AM broadcast on an FM radio. That’s all there was to it.

Jason opened his mouth again but a series of quick, heavy beats on the front door cut him off before he could launch into a Grace-trademarked speech about friendship and trust. Piper raised an eyebrow at Nico, who groaned, set his dinner down, and shuffled over to the door.

“Stop losing your key, for God’s sake, Leo,” he shouted as he swung it open. “One of these days you’re going to get locked out when I’m not home, and—”

The first thing he registered was a crown of blond hair. His voice died in his throat.

Will was doubled over, his hands on his knees, panting heavily. There was a piece of paper clutched in one of his fists, sweat dampening the waves of hair around his forehead, making it darker, straighter, clinging to his skin. He looked up and lunged forward, grabbing Nico by the shoulder.

“Death Boy!” he gasped. “Oh, thank God, you’re home – I need you.”

Nico wiped the pizza sauce off his face.

Jason and Piper hurried up behind him, Jason staring over the top of his head and Piper peering around his shoulder. Will’s eyes flicked from Nico to the two behind him, and his hand dropped off Nico’s shoulder, already flushed cheeks darkening slightly.

“I mean – okay, sorry, that wasn’t what I meant. What I meant was—I need your help.”

Nico squeezed his eyes shut and weighed his options.

The first: slam the door in his face and tell him to come back when he’s not acting like a crazy person. Possibly get treated to another middle-of-the-night Taylor Swift marathon.

The second: ask him what the hell the problem is. Prepare for hour-long rant.

The third: let him inside. Accept the inevitable raid of the refrigerator (Jason was probably going to do it anyways, Will might as well help). Give in to fate.

He sighed and stepped to the side. “Come in, then.”

Will’s head flopped forward theatrically and he chanted, “Thank you thank you _thank_ you.”

“Want some pizza?” Jason offered, around a mouthful of his own.

Will shook his head and half-sprinted into the room, flopping down face-first on the couch. “I don’t want _anything_ ,” he moaned into the upholstery. “I’m so frickin’ _screwed_.”

“You don’t want pizza?” Jason looked at Nico, eyes wide and alarmed, like he was pretty sure Will was clinically insane.

“I want to die!”

“Okay, okay.” Piper held her hands out in a soothing gesture. “Why don’t you tell us what’s going on so we can help? You wanted Nico’s help, right?”

Will’s head snapped up. “Right!” He flattened the paper crumpled in his hand and extended it to Piper, who took it from him hesitantly. “My mom just sent me that. My sister Victoria’s getting married and they decided to move the wedding up to the week after next. Mom said she’d pay to fly me down to South Carolina, where they’re having the reception, but I thought I’d have more time and since my dad’s not around she wants me to have the first dance with Tori and long story short – Do any of you happen to know how to dance?”

Nico froze.

Piper’s eyebrows furrowed and she scanned the invitation in his hand. “I took ballet as a kid, but I’m pretty sure that’s not what you were referring to.”

Of course. Of freaking course.

Will shook his head. “No, no. Ballroom dancing. I don’t know. The waltz or something. Hell, I don’t care, teach me to salsa. I’m desperate.”

_For the love of all that was mighty_ —

Jason lifted his hands above his head. “Don’t look at me. I can do the Macarena, and that’s about it.”

Option one: kick Will out. Kick Jason and Piper out, while he was at it. Go to bed early, or maybe watch old episodes of _Ancient Aliens_ on Netflix. Possibly get treated to another middle-of-the-night Taylor Swift marathon.

Option two: comment on how stupid stressing out over a wedding dance was. Prepare for an hour-long rant.

Option three…

Nico’s head dropped down onto the table with a heavy _thunk_. He slowly raised an arm over his head. “I know how to dance,” he mumbled into the wood.

Give in to fate.

“Oh, my God,” Will said. He was on his feet immediately, half-running, half-flying across the room to Nico’s side. He grabbed Nico’s hand. Nico kept his head pressed against the table. “Oh, my God, _seriously_? Can you teach me?”

Oh, there it was. Jason was giggling. Probably trying to muffle the sounds with his hands. Nico didn’t lift his head to find out.

“Where did you learn how to dance?” Jason asked. His voice wobbled a little bit. Nico fought the urge to flip him off.

“We had to learn in high school,” he told the tabletop. “Our gym teacher was sadistic. Ask Hazel about it.”

“That’s amazing!” Will yelped. “Oh, you are a _godsend_ , Death Boy.”

Nico scowled and lifted his head to shoot a pointed look at him. “I’ll teach you if you _stop calling me that_.”

Will beamed at him. “No promises.”

“I’ll get music,” Jason offered. Nico tried not to groan.

 

After that, it all became a bit of a blur. Piper and Jason helped them push the furniture out of the way, placing Buford’s food and water dishes on top of the counter, rolling the rug up halfway so that the floors were exposed. Nico found Leo’s stash of duct tape in a drawer and taped a small square onto the floor. Jason pulled up what he called his ‘emo playlist’ on his laptop and settled next to Piper at the kitchen table.

Nico and Will stood facing each other in the center of the room. Nico hesitated, then shrugged off the leather jacket he’d been wearing (Jason wolf-whistled, so he chucked it at him, and didn’t wait to check whether it had hit him in the face).

Nico was painfully aware of the taller boy in front of him, of the way his own eyes were just a little bit too high to be level with his lips. Will was wearing a deep maroon short-sleeve button-up, and the way it sat on his shoulders made them look broader.

(Nico wondered when, exactly, he’d started to see somebody like _Will Solace_ as being solid, steady.)

Next to him, Nico felt… inadequate. Uncomfortable. Hyper-aware of the shortcomings of his own body. He was too skinny, his hair too long and too dark, his smiles rare and small and unnatural. His t-shirt didn’t cover the band of tattoos up his arm, a collage of charcoals and blacks and a single splotch of crimson across the bicep. Will looked so _right_ , all sun-stained blond hair and easy grins and bare, slightly dirty feet, and Nico couldn’t help feeling that if he was summer, noontime, sunlight, than Nico must’ve been made from midnight.

_Focus, goddammit, di Angelo._

“Assuming that you’re going to be dancing with a girl at the wedding,” Nico began. Will snorted. Nico scowled at him. “What’s funny?”

“Nothing, nothing. Sorry. Continue.”

“Okay,” Nico continued slowly. “ _Assuming that you’re going to be dancing with a girl at the wedding_ , we should practice like that, so you’re used to it. I’m gonna put my hand on your shoulder. You need to put your arm around me.”

Will’s eyes widened a little bit. His ears were bright red. “I need to… um… what?”

Nico rolled his eyes and stepped closer, grabbing Will’s hand and guiding it to his back, just below his shoulder blade. Carefully, precisely, he held Will’s other hand up and positioned it around his own.

He threw his mind into the task. Move this finger here, adjust this position here. No time to think, no time to feel, because Will’s skin was warm, and where they touched, Nico felt _alive_ , like there was a current under his skin.

Electric, electric.

He looked up to meet Will’s eyes. He was staring down at him, his features too still and his eyes too round, pink dusted across his cheekbones. Nico could feel his breath against his own cheek, warm and slow and just a little uneven.

“Jason? Music?” Nico prompted.

“You got it, sensei!”

“Okay. We’re gonna start with a basic square, got it? Follow my lead and the tape on the floor. I’ll count out loud to start, but it’s really pretty simple.”

Will learned quickly. He was light on his feet, eager, energetic, as adept at dancing as he seemed to be with all other things. He grinned down at Nico a lot. His hand felt like an anchor on Nico’s back. It shared the weight of the sky.

They were so close. Take note, take note. Remember what it felt like – his chest against Nico’s chest, his hand closed around Nico’s hand. There was a dimple on the right side of his mouth. He had a tiny white scar over the dirty blond of his left eyebrow. There were flecks of gold in the blue of his eyes.

_This and this and this._

His eyes traced down Nico’s arm and Nico shifted, itchy under his gaze, wishing desperately to run. Pull away.

Isn’t that what he always did? Run from things he was scared of? Why not this? Why not Will, too?

“You don’t have to be embarrassed. I like them,” Will said. His voice was so quiet. Barely more than a whisper. Barely more than a breath. Nico stumbled, surprised, his cheeks too warm and his throat too dry, and Will’s grip around his waist tightened. “They’re part of you.”

Over Will’s shoulder, Nico caught Piper’s eye. She smiled at him like she knew, and for once in his life, Nico didn’t care.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> GRATUITOUS FLUFF TO MAKE UP FOR LAST TIME.  
> Will is so incompetent at flirting it gives me life.  
> Those of you who've been following this and consistently commenting make me seriously SO happy. Thank you thank you THANK YOU [insert a million kissy face emojis here]


	9. Heat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Nico's luck really, REALLY sucks (poor baby please forgive me)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Fall to your knees, bring on the rapture.  
> Blessed be the boys time can't capture  
> On film or between the sheets.  
> I always fall from your window to the pitch-black streets.
> 
> And in the end  
> I'd do it all again.  
> I think you're my best friend.  
> Don't you know that the kids aren't al—, kids aren't alright?"  
> -Fall Out Boy (The Kids Aren't Alright)
> 
> This is your friendly reminder that this fic is rated M for a reason - if you're uncomfortable with sexy stuff, skip over the first bit (maybe control+F "sleep didn't come again that night"?).

heat

hēt/

_noun_

1\. The quality of being hot; high temperature.

2\. Intensity of feeling, especially of anger or excitement.

 

Will left for his sister’s wedding early on Friday morning.

The building seemed quieter.

Colors seemed duller.

And that night, Nico’s dream was different than usual.

There was no rain-wet pavement. No shattered car and shattered girl and shattered scream. It wasn’t shrouded in shades of gray, cloaked in mist and drenched with the coppery smell of fresh-shed blood.

Instead, the light was golden, and there was a different taste on Nico’s tongue. Sweat on his forehead, sweat on his lips, the taste of heavy, ragged breathing and clinging skin, of fingers fisted in blond hair, his mouth hot against bare throat and chest and freckled cheeks.

Slough it off, shed his skin. He was no longer Nico di Angelo. He was made of something different, something violent and stark and elemental, and there was fire burning inside him for the first time in a thousand years.

Blue eyes met his own, and Nico woke up cold, his sheet tangled around his ankles, the crotch of his shorts suddenly painfully tight.

 _This is probably a bad idea_ , he thought, but he was too far gone to care.

He kicked the blankets away and peeled the sweat-soaked clothes off his body, quickly, impatiently, the fire from his dream still running like a current blow his skin. When his hand moved down between his legs, his hips bucked involuntarily, and he had to bite down hard on his lip to keep from moaning.

Nico squeezed his eyes shut, and then the hand running up and down his length wasn’t his own anymore. It was too easy – _stupidly_ easy – to picture: what Will’s breath would feel like against his throat, what that callous on the inside of his thumb would feel like, the way sweat would make the stray blonde curls cling to his forehead.

What his name would sound like on Will’s lips.

What a moan would taste like on Will’s tongue.

His pace increased, his fingers wrapped around his dick, his other hand digging into the pillow behind his head. The dream was exceptionally _, painfully_ vivid. He remembered dream-Will's lips on his stomach, dream-Will's hands on his thighs, dream-Will's tongue in his mouth.

_Faster._

It didn’t take long. Again and again and again, Will seemed to break down the things inside Nico, wall after wall, dam after dam, and this was no different. Even hundreds of miles away, Nico’s mind was full of Will, of broad, tanned shoulders and blue eyes glazed over with pleasure, and _that_ was the image that sent him over the edge.

When he came, he muffled his groan in his pillow and then just lay there quietly and let the heat and the tingling and the fire fade away.

It wasn’t long before the endorphins faded.

 _That was stupid_ , his mind whispered.

 _Will’s your friend,_ his mind whispered.

 _He’s your friend, and you just pictured him jerking you off_ , his mind whispered.

 _You just_ came _to the thought of your_ friend.

 _What kind of self-centered bastard_ does _that?_

And Nico had never felt smaller or more helpless in his entire life, because he knew he shouldn’t have done it and he knew it was shameful and yet somehow all he wanted was to fall back asleep and open his eyes again immersed in golden light and finish what he had started.

He felt like he was drowning, like he was standing at the base of a mountain and the mountain was crumbling around him and he was buried, buried, buried.

(As if hands were enough to hold an avalanche off.)

 

Sleep didn’t come again that night – or, if it did, it came in brief spurts. Nico was up and dressed incredibly the next morning. The sky was still pale, eggshell, pre-dawn gray, but his limbs itched with frenzied, static energy, so he dug his sneakers out of his closet and dressed for a run.

He opened his bedroom door slowly and stepped lightly. In the living room, Leo was passed out on the couch with _The Iliad_ open across his face and highlighter smeared across his cheek. Nico sighed and shook his head, tossing a blanket over his roommate before he left.

He wasn’t sure how long he ran for. His brain felt _off_ , foggy; he didn’t know whether it was lack of sleep or guilt that was driving him forward.

It happened fast, a blur of flurried movement and screeching brakes and the all-too-familiar stench of burning rubber.

For a second, he was back in Seattle, and he was collapsing on the side of the road while somebody shouted, _“Call Hades, that’s his daughter, that’s Bianca—_ ”

“Hey, are you okay? Stay with me, buddy, stay with me now—”

Nico jerked upright on the pavement. There was a girl in a purple sweatshirt crouching over him, on hand on his pulse and the other pulling a cell phone out of her pocket. His ankle felt like it was being stabbed repeatedly by something searing hot and probably spiked.

“All right?” the girl asked. She leaned back on her heels and inspected him carefully.

 _She has an emperor’s eyes_ , Nico thought. Then he wondered what was wrong with him.

“What the hell happened?” he asked.

The girl scowled. She had skin like Nico’s, light brown and smooth, and a long, extremely dark braid that she wore down her back. Her eyes were black like Nico’s too.

 _‘That’s his daughter, that’s Bianca_ —’

“Some asshole almost hit you,” the girl said. “They were driving like a maniac. I managed to grab you in time, but you landed funny on your ankle, and then you passed out. I’m going to call an ambulance, stay still.”

Nico blanched. “No, don’t do that. I’m fine, I think it’s just a sprain, I’ve had them before.”

“You passed out,” she repeated, like Nico was stupid, or maybe just concussed.

“I know. Well, no. I didn’t pass out. I—” Nico winced. “Look. I don’t have great experience with cars in the past.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Flashbacks?”

“Call ’em whatever you want.” Nico waved a hand and tried to push himself up, but she shot him a glare that looked like it could melt metal and he settled back down.

“I still think you should get looked at by a doctor.”

_Blond hair, blue eyes, Will’s voice in Nico’s ear, Will’s hands at the waistband of Nico’s pants—_

“ _No_.”

“All right, suit yourself. But I _am_ going to walk you home.” Nico opened his mouth hotly to protest, but she shook her head. “Don’t argue. You’re hurt. What direction are we headed in?”

She helped him to his feet and slung one of his arms over her shoulders, half supporting his weight, half carrying him. It was lucky she was tall, Nico thought grimly as they made their ungainly way up the street, Nico hobbling, the girl straight-backed and surprisingly dignified.

“My name’s Reyna, by the way,” she said, what seemed like hours later.

“Nico.”

One corner of her mouth twitched up a little. Was she laughing at him? It was kind of hard to tell. “Nice to meet you, Nico.”

“Likewise.” He hesitated, then said, “And thanks for pulling me out of the road. I wasn’t really paying attention.”

“Clearly,” Reyna sniffed. “Are you usually that careless? You could’ve been seriously injured.”

 _Great_. Sleep-deprived, guilt-ridden, sprained ankle, and now he had the absolute pleasure of being treated to a sermon from the probable reincarnation of Caesar himself.

“I had a late night,” Nico grumbled.

“Party?”

She didn’t look sympathetic.

_Nope. I masturbated to the thought of one of the only people who can stand to be around me. Thanks for asking so nicely, though!_

“Nightmare,” he said instead, and her expression softened a little.

“I see.”

There was another long silence, punctuated by their labored breathing and the pains shooting up Nico’s ankle. Then she said, quietly, “I get them, too, you know. If you want to talk about it—”

“I don’t.”

She nodded. “I know. Let me finish. If you want to talk about it, you should, but to somebody you know. Somebody you trust. I kept my issues with my family inside, dealt with them alone for years, and yeah, I looked strong on the outside, but it never really _got better_ until I let someone in. You see?”

“People know about my problems.”

Reyna rolled her eyes. “All of them?”

 _Wouldn’t it make you feel_ better _to come out to them?_

“…No.”

“I’m not saying you should lay all your secrets out on the table,” she continued. “That would be uncomfortable for everyone. But if there’s something weighing on you, it might help to let it out.”

“It might make it worse, too.”

“It might. But you’ll never know until you try, will you?”

 

When they reached Nico's apartment building, Reyna helped him up the stairs and down the hall and to his apartment door. When they knocked, Jason was the one who answered, a piece of toast in his mouth and the legs of his raggedy old sweatpants rolled up around his knees.

“What happened? Are you okay? Oh, my God, your leg is broken, isn’t it? Oh, my God, we’re going to have to amputate. Should I call Piper? Should I call _Will_? Leo just left, like, five minutes ago, should I go find him—?”

Nico groaned. “Jason. Calm down.”

“Nico is fine,” Reyna assured him. “There was a small accident involving a car, and his ankle is sprained. You should probably Google proper treatment, though, and maybe call the Health Center. I’m a poli-sci major, not pre-med.”

There was a frenzy of movement as they attempted to get him settled on the couch. Nico sort of felt like he’d been blindsided by a semi truck, and he barely even registered when Reyna scribbled something on a piece of paper, told Jason to call her if they needed anything, and swept out of the room.

Woman like her, Nico thought vaguely, were the reason why storms were named after people.

“What happened?” Jason demanded, dragging one of the kitchen tables near the couch. “Leo said you left really early this morning. Is everything okay?”

“I just needed to think.”

Jason Grace was one of the most easy-going people Nico knew, so when his eyebrows furrowed and his mouth thinned into Piper’s trademarked Serious Expression, it was abundantly clear to Nico that he was in for it.

“You’ve been different lately,” Jason said. “It’s not a bad different, don’t get me wrong, but… If you don’t tell me what you’re thinking, I can’t ever help you, you know? Let me try and help you.”

 _I kept my issues with my family inside, dealt with them alone for years, and yeah, I looked strong on the outside, but it never really_ got better _until I let someone in._

_You’ll never know until you try, will you?_

“Do you remember,” Nico said, quietly, “Freshman year, when you all kept trying to figure out who I liked, and I wouldn’t tell you?”

“We had a contest going,” Jason said. “My money was on Annabeth Chase. What does this—?”

“It wasn’t.”

“Wasn’t what?”

“Annabeth.”

Jason’s eyebrows creased. He couldn’t have articulated _what the hell does this have to do with anything_ better if he shouted. “Um. Okay. Who…?”

“Percy.”

Jason blinked at him through his glasses.

Nico stared back.

“Percy,” Jason repeated.

“Yeah.”

“Percy _Jackson_.”

“Yeah.”

“Oh,” Jason said.

“Oh,” Nico agreed.

“So you’re…” He trailed off, eyes large and bemused, and Nico was so, so _done_ with this, so sick of feeling inherently _other_ , separate.

“Yeah. I’m gay. That’s it, all right? That’s the truth. That’s the big secret.”

He’d been right after all, hadn’t he? He should’ve kept it in, kept it quiet. What was telling other people supposed to do, anyway? Was it supposed to make him feel normal, or something?

It hadn’t worked with Hazel.

What had made him think it would work with Jason?

“This doesn’t change anything, you know.” Nico’s head snapped up. Jason was smiling at him, gentle and soft and honestly _happy_. “You’re one of my best friends, man, and honestly? I know a lot of brave people. But you… you’re probably the bravest.”

Nico didn’t feel brave. Mostly, he felt tired.

“Please don’t tell anyone else,” he begged.

“It’s your call.”

“I gave up on Percy a long time ago.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. It’s not… it’s not like that anymore.”

Something close to understanding was dawning on Jason’s face. What was the point in pretending at this point?

When he said, very softly, “Will?” Nico just nodded.

Their conversation returned to normal fairly quickly after that. Jason helped Nico ice his foot, and they found some soccer game from Portugal to watch on TV, picking random sides to root for. Leo reappeared with groceries and a new videogame around noon, and they spent the afternoon breaking it in.

It wasn’t until Jason was leaving that he leaned over and muttered in Nico’s ear, “Thank you for telling me.”

Nico didn’t say _thank you for not hating me_ , but he thought Jason probably understood.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, this took me a lot longer to write than I thought it would. I was stuck in a bit of a slump for a couple days and then FINALLY I was able to string this chapter together, so I apologize that it took a little longer this time.


	10. Fault

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which old friends make an appearance and Nico is completely hopeless (somebody help this kid).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "What a shame, oh, what a shame  
> Beautiful scars on critical veins."  
> -All Time Low (Kids in the Dark)

fault

fôlt/ 

_noun_

Responsibility for an accident or misfortune.

 

It turned out that there were very few things that were more inconvenient than being unable to use your foot.

Nico was lucky the apartment was small, because he could use the furniture to balance himself as he hopped from the kitchen to his bedroom and back again. When Monday came and he needed to leave for class, however, different arrangements had to be made. Leo still had a pair of crutches from when he’d broken his leg freshman year, so Nico took to using them to get to the bus stop. The trip back and forth took forever, though, and made his armpits ache for hours.

The stairs were even worse. The weird art student who lived alone on the second floor caught him trying to scoot down on his ass Tuesday morning. She leaned on the frame of her open door, holding a mug of coffee in her hands, and raised an astonishingly orange eyebrow at him.

“Seems counterproductive,” she observed cheerfully.

“Sprained ankle,” Nico grunted.

“Want some help?”

There was a smudge of paint on her cheek, a blue plastic paintbrush tucked in her long mop of red hair, and it looked like she’d scribbled on her jeans with a Sharpie.

“No, thanks.” He kept scooting.

“Suit yourself,” she chuckled. “Good luck, buddy.”

Between his foot, the anxious calls from Hazel he seemed to be fielding every half an hour or so, and the annoying quiet that seemed to permeate the whole building with Will still in South Carolina, by Wednesday, Nico was pretty worn out.

 

FROM: Solace, 9:14 AM

jason told me abt ur foot. keep it elevated/iced/try not to walk on it. ill take a look when i get back tonight

 

TO: Solace, 9:16 AM

A little late for that. I’m on the bus right now.

 

There were a million things for Nico to think about, but somehow, Saturday night seemed to wear on him the most. Promising himself he’d never think about Will like that again had been easy. But now that the dreams started, they wouldn’t seem to stop, and he felt like an addict who was locked in a room with an unlimited supply of crack-cocaine.

 

FROM: Solace, 9:18 AM

r u serious??? nico wtf

FROM: Solace, 9:18 AM

u need to take better care of urself

 

TO: Solace, 9:19 AM

I also need to go to class.

 

FROM: Solace, 9:20 AM

taking care of urself needs to come 1st. go lay down as soon as ur class is done. doctors orders

 

That girl, Reyna, had made it sound like confiding in Jason would make all his problems go away. And yeah, Nico did feel a little bit lighter, like he was carrying one less weight on his shoulders. But that didn’t made the sick feeling he got in his stomach whenever Will texted go away.

He probably should’ve known that was too good to be true. Maybe he’d hoped that voicing his stupid little crush out loud would make it less violent inside him.

 

TO: Solace, 9:23 AM

You’re not a doctor.

 

FROM: Solace, 9:24 AM

that is a technicality

 

It hadn’t worked.

 

FROM: Solace, 9:25 AM

ill see u tonight

 

Of course it hadn’t.

 

Instead of going straight home after his class as Will had instructed him to, Nico took a detour to the grocery store. The sun was already setting outside as he made his ungainly way through the aisles.

He hadn’t realized how quickly October had been passing. There was only a little over a week to Halloween.

Maneuvering with the crutches and a shopping basket was more than a little challenging. He only needed a couple items – some cereal, a loaf of bread, a carton of milk – but he kept dropping stuff and knocking into displays, and after twenty minutes, he was starting to wish he’d called Leo and asked him to pick up the food instead.

When he accidentally dropped the Cheerios on the floor instead of on the basket, he cursed out loud and had to physically restrain himself from kicking the wall.

“Need some help, Death Boy?”

It was a miracle he didn’t drop the whole basket.

“Keep it elevated, I said,” Will sighed as he reached down to pick the box off the tiles. “Try not to walk on it, I said. And what do you do? Go shopping, of course. Completely logical.”

He looked different. Tanner. More freckles on the bridge of his nose. More golden in the crown of his hair.

His eyes were the same, though.

“I thought you were getting in tonight,” Nico said, slowly. He took the Cheerios out of Will’s hands.

Will shrugged. “Surprise! Try not to look so excited, it’ll go to my head.”

Nico laughed before he could stop himself. “How was the wedding?”

Will’s face split into a smile that was so beautiful it made Nico’s chest physically hurt. He looked deeply, genuinely happy, and Nico had never wanted to keep looking at another person so much in his entire life.

“It was _incredible_ ,” Will gushed. “Tori looked beautiful, and I was able to dance without making a fool of myself, thanks to you—” Nico wrestled with his expression in an attempt to keep it neutral. “—And the food was good and I got to see my family… I wish you could’ve been there, though. It would’ve been more fun,” he finished.

“Oh.” Nico blinked at him. “I don’t know. I’m, um… I’m not so good at weddings.”

Will raised an eyebrow. “You don’t like weddings? Come _on_. They’re celebrations of love! The ultimate commitment! Don’t you think that’s _romantic_?”

“I guess I’m not a very romantic person. And it’s not weddings in particular. More… parties in general, I guess.”

“You don’t like parties?” Will shook his head. “No, that’s not possible. Everybody likes parties. Maybe you just haven’t been to the right one yet.”

“I’m pretty sure that’s not the problem.” Nico set off down the aisle. Will jogged to catch up and grabbed the basket out of his hand.

“What’s the problem, then?”

“Mostly it’s the fact that there are other people there.” Nico raised an eyebrow at Will, whose face crumpled into a theatrical pout.

“Fine. No big groups. What about a party with two people?”

They’d arrived at the checkout. Will helped him load the groceries onto the conveyor belt. Their hands brushed when they went for the milk at the same time – electricity shot through Nico’s skin – and both pulled away sharply, looking in opposite directions.

“What do you mean, a party with two people?” Nico asked. The cashier placed his items into a bag and he passed her his debt card with a muttered _thanks_. “That’s not a thing.”

“Sure it is. You put on music, you buy too much food, you play shitty video games, you stay up too late, you drink a little too much cheep beer. It’s like a normal party, only smaller scale.”

Nico snorted. Will grabbed the bag and led him out of the store, walking backwards so he could keep eye contact.

“You’re laughing at me! What, you’re saying that doesn’t sound fun?”

“No, it sounds fun,” Nico sniggered. “You’re just ridiculous. Who thinks of this stuff?”

Will pressed his free hand to his chest in mock outrage. “You, my friend, just don’t know how to have a good time. Lucky for you, you’ve got me.”

“Yeah, lucky me.”

“Okay, now _that_ was definitely insincere—”

“Hey, Nico!”

_Oh, no_.

“Wait up!”

_Oh,_ no _, not now—_

Nico turned, slow and ungainly, to face a boy with a mess of pitch-dark hair and eyes the color of the ocean, jogging towards them and waving.

“What happened to your leg, di Angelo?” Percy Jackson demanded. “Are you _ever_ not hurt?”

“I had a bit of an altercation with a moving vehicle.” Nico shrugged. “It was no big deal.”

Percy’s eyes widened. “You got hit by a car? Are you joking?”

“Not hit. This girl pulled me out of the way.” Nico glanced at Will, who was staring at Percy with his mouth open slightly. Something rough and primal and angry snarled in Nico’s chest, and he had the sudden urge to punch Percy in this face. “Um. Solace, this is Percy Jackson. He’s an old friend of the family. Percy, this is Will Solace, my—” shit“—neighbor.” _Shit_.

Will’s expression faltered on the word ‘neighbor,’ but only for a second, and then he was turning his megawatt smile onto Percy. “You’re captain of the swim team, aren’t you? My track team went and saw your tournament last spring. Are you the Percy Jackson who shattered about twenty state records?”

Percy rubbed a hand through his hair and smiled humbly. “Yeah, that’s me. We’ve got some freshman this year with a lot of potential, though, so the record probably won’t stay broken for long.”

The conversation went back and forth like that for several more minutes. Nico’s foot was starting to ache, and it was getting dark, and the coiled anger inside his chest seemed to tighten every time Will and Percy made eye contact.

He hadn’t known that Will ran track. He never had even thought to ask.

When Percy finally bounded off, promising he’d tell Annabeth Nico said hi, it felt like they’d been standing there for hours.

He took off down the street without a word. There was something boiling running underneath his skin. He didn’t really know why he was angry – he just was.

“Hey, hang on.” Will hurried to catch up with Nico, fell into step next to him. “I didn’t know you were friends Percy Jackson.”

“Right. Sorry, I guess I forgot to mention I knew our campus celebrity.”

“No worries.” Nico wasn’t sure whether he’d ignored the sarcasm on purpose or was just dense. “He’s pretty cute, don’t you think?”

“Not my type,” Nico said, before he could stop himself.

_Nice. Lie to him through your teeth the night he gets back into town. Solid start, di Angelo_.

Will’s eyebrows shot up. “Really? Sort of thought guys like that were everybody’s type.”

_He doesn’t mean it. He had a_ girlfriend _, remember? He’s not even into guys, so what’s it matter if he says Percy’s cute?_

_Why are you so_ jealous _?_

“Well,” Nico growled, “guess I’m not like everybody.”

“What’s your type, then?”

Stop it, stop it, _stop_ it. This was mean, this was _torture_ , because what was he supposed to say? _My type is big blond idiots with blue eyes and freckles and oh by the way, I think I’m a little in love with you?_

“Drop it, Solace.”

Will’s eyebrows furrowed. “Sorry, I didn’t mean… Is everything okay, Nico? You seem—”

“ _Drop_ it.”

Will’s jaw clenched down, and Nico understood that he’d crossed a line. “Okay, fine, sure. Let’s talk about something else, then, shall we, _neighbor_?”

“That came out wrong,” Nico muttered. “I didn’t mean—”

“You didn’t mean to imply that we’re not friends? That’s funny, because I’m pretty you’ve done everything you possibly can to make sure we’re not.”

The boiling in Nico’s skin turned to ice.

“I didn’t—”

“You don’t tell me anything about yourself. You never ask about me, you never ask to come over. You keep yourself at arm’s length and it doesn’t make sense to me, because I want to get to know you—”

“And _that_ doesn’t make sense to _me_.” Their voices were too loud. People were staring. Nico didn’t care. “People don’t _like_ me, Solace. They don’t talk to me. They don’t go out of their way to hang out with me. I’m not like you, I don’t _fit_ , and it’s been that way my entire life, so I don’t know what game you’re trying to play with me – whether you made some kind of bet, or I’m some charity case you decided to pick up on the side, or whatever—”

“You’re not a _charity case_!” Will looked outraged. “I didn’t talk to you because you were a _challenge_ —”

“Then why in the hell—”

“Because I liked you!” He threw his arms into the air. Nico’s heartbeat stopped. “I talked to you because you’re cool, because you’re funny and quiet and you’ve got a nice smile, and I _liked_ you, okay? And you know what? It’s not that people don’t like you. Nobody pushes you away. You push _yourself_ away! You don’t make eye contact, you force yourself not to laugh, and for what? What’s the _point_ , Nico? What’s so great about being alone?”

This wasn’t how it was supposed to go.

“Maybe if you’d get your head out of that brooding cloud of yours for once—”

And that was exactly why. Why he kept himself apart, why he’d pushed Will away. Because people always wanted something from you. They want you to meet them in the middle, want you to change. And Nico had torn too many pieces off of himself already. For his father, for Percy, for his friends, for the sister he’d lost and the sister he still had.

They’d reached the apartment.

Nico took the bag of groceries from Will’s hands silently. Will looked stricken, the uncharacteristic anger drained from his face.

“I didn’t mean…” he whispered. “I – I’m sorry.”

Nico was, too.

“Thanks for the help,” Nico said. His voice was too low, too even. Like the bad days. It scared him. “I’ll see you around.”

“Nico—”

He didn’t have anything left of himself to give.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯   
> (sorry guys, please don't kill me.)


	11. Between

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which drinks are had and revelations are... well... revealed. (Can you tell I am fried from SAT prep? Because I am extremely fried from SAT prep).  
> OR  
> Hey! This is moderately less sad than last time!! GO ME!!!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Thread by thread I come apart   
> If brokenness is a work of art   
> Surely this must be my masterpiece.
> 
> I'm only honest when it rains  
> If I time it right, the thunder breaks   
> When I open my mouth  
> I wanna tell you but I don't know how.  
> ....  
> I wanna love you but I don't know how."  
> -Sleeping at Last (Neptune)

be·tween

bəˈtwēn/

_preposition_

At, into, or across the space separating (two objects or regions).

 

When Nico was a kid, a nasty case of swine flu swept through his middle school. He woke up one morning feeling like he’d been hit by a bus, and spent the week alternating between throwing up and sleeping. At the time, he would’ve sworn that was the worst feeling in the whole world.

The universe, it seemed, just loved proving him wrong.

Losing Will wasn’t the worst thing he’d ever gone through. If there was some kind of cosmic nurse who descended from the sky and asked him to rate his pain, he wouldn’t say ten. He knew ten. He’d seen ten. He’d lived ten. This wasn’t ten.

It was pretty damn close, though.

 

FROM: Solace, 7:35 PM

nico we need to talk abt this

FROM: Solace, 7:39 PM

if ur not going to come to the door, at least answer the phone

 

He could picture it all in such perfect detail – that might’ve been the worst part. What Will’s hand had felt like, pressed against Nico’s back, his breath on Nico’s cheek and their fingers intertwined. His laugh. His inexplicable attachment to watching baseball on TV – it didn’t matter the team, he just liked watching the game. When they were standing in line for coffee, too close, and their hands brushed, and neither pulled away, and the swooping, falling, plunging feeling in Nico’s stomach was similar to the one he got on that swing set, all those years ago, when he jumped off and the ground reached up to catch him.

 

FROM: Solace, 7:40 PM

what i said was way out of line and im so sorry, but i still think i deserve some consideration. no more of this ‘neighbors’ business

FROM: Solace, 7:42 PM

nico, im worried. text me back.

 

What Will’s voice had sounded like, when he launched the truth at Nico like spears: “You never ask about me… You push _yourself_ away… What’s so great about being alone?”

Nico has been collecting moments for so long, it was impossible not to check this one off, mark it down, store it away inside his chest with all the others.

 

TO: Solace, 7:45 PM

I’m sorry, too. But I think I need some space.

 

(Read as: I don’t think I can give you what you need from me. What you _deserve_ from me.

I am removing myself so you don’t have to.)

 

FROM: Solace, 7:50 PM

right. of course. im sorry

FROM: Solace, 7:52 PM

im really, really sorry, nico

 

(Read as: I think I am shattering, and I used to count on you to pick up the pieces.)

Some memories, we’d be better off forgetting.

 

“Nico.”

“No.”

“Nico, please.”

“No.”

“Come on, man, you’ve been avoiding contact with other humans for _days_! Don’t you want to get out? Have some fun?”

“Jason, are you even aware of who you’re talking to?”

Across the room, Jason flicked the ceiling light on. Nico gave a half-scream and buried his face in the pillows, grabbing a pen off the nightstand and chucking it blindly in the blonde’s direction. It hit the wall and fell to the floor with a sharp _clatter_.

“That could’ve hit me,” Jason said mildly.

“But it didn’t.”

“To apologize, you have to come to the party with me.”

“I’m not going to the Stolls’ stupid Halloween party.”

“Yes, you are. You have to. I’m not leaving until you say you’ll come.”

“I’m sick.”

“You’re _moping_. That’s not the same thing.”

“What, I’m not allowed to mope?”

“Not anymore, you’re not.” Jason yanked the covers away from Nico’s body. Nico lashed out with a fist and narrowly missed knocking Jason’s glasses off his nose. “Come on. It’s nine oh—frickin’—clock on a Friday night and I’m not letting you waste your college career moaning because you had a fight with your boyfriend.”

“He’s not my boyfriend,” Nico growled. “Get off my case, Mom.”

“I’ll pay you.”

“No.”

“I’ll buy you dinner for a week.”

“No way in hell.”

“Movie tickets for a month!”

“Jason.”

“That Mythomagic limited-edition set on EBay you’ve got saved to the bookmarks on your laptop.”

Nico’s voice died in his throat.

“Seems like a pretty good deal to me,” Jason lilted, offering what he probably thought was a charming smile. He didn’t have to. Nico was already dragging himself out of bed.

This, he thought, was probably the worst part about having a friend who actually paid attention to you.

 

And that was how Nico ended up in the middle of Travis and Connor Stoll’s apartment on Halloween night, dressed in an outfit Piper had picked out for him, feeling a bit like he’d been hit between the eyes with a firecracker.

If there was one thing you could say about the Stoll brothers, it was that they didn’t do things by halves. The windows had mostly been blacked out and the lights turned off; the room was lit in turns orange and green by an enormous disco ball style setup they’d affixed to the ceiling. Some pop song with a generic, electronic beat was being blasted over speakers that seemed too gigantic to be real. There were cheap, dollar-store glow-in-the-dark decorations hanging around the walls, and Leo admitted that Travis had commandeered him to help set up tricks and booby traps around the apartment.

Piper and Jason had disappeared ages ago, Leo looked like he was trying to chat up the pretty drama student with the Greek name Nico could never remember, and Frank had refused to come on the grounds that he planned on Skyping Hazel.

Nico was alone.

Which was funny, because it sort of seemed like most of the school had turned up to attempt to press themselves into the apartment. People, people, on every side, and it was beginning to feel like drowning.

Once or twice, he caught himself scanning the crowd for a mop of golden hair and a smile like the sun, but he never saw either.

Nico held himself stiffly, leaning against a wall, uncomfortable in the too-expensive leather jacket Piper had dug out of his closet (a gift from his father), uncomfortable with the dirty looks some of the girls in cream-colored cardigans threw him as they walked past, uncomfortable in his skin.

The music felt numbing, like the heavy bassline was literally beating his brain into submission.

“Hey, Nico.”

He jumped.

“Slow down, there, soldier. Remember me?”

Reyna looked different tonight – maybe because she was wearing makeup, maybe because there wasn’t a haze of pain over Nico’s vision, maybe because the lighting in the room was god-awful. She had a deep purple dress on instead of jeans and a sweatshirt, a golden circlet in her hair, and Nico was reminded even more violently of a Roman emperor.

She offered him a small half-smile and held out a full cup of slightly suspicious-looking beer.

“You looked about ready to kill someone. I thought I’d intervene before it came down to manslaughter. How’s the foot?”

He took the drink, sniffed it, and then took a sip. It was horrific, tasting of dishwater and something much,  _much_ stronger than beer, and Nico had never wanted to badly to be drunk out of his mind. He took another swig. “Better. Thanks.”

“Was it sprained?”

“Yeah, but I’ve been taking it easy. I can walk on it fine, now.”

“Glad to hear it.” She shook her head, took a sip of her own drink. “These things are awful, aren’t they? It’s hard to breathe.”

“My friends made me come,” Nico muttered.

“I’m an RA over at one of the freshman dorms. Lots of my kids are here, so I figured I should probably come and keep an eye on things.” She sighed. “I’m starting to regret it, though.”

This wasn’t working. Even the extra alcohol somebody had obviously spiked the drink with wasn't strong enough to make him forget the hole in his chest where Will Solace should be.

He downed the rest of the cup.

“I took your advice,” he said. “Talked to one of my friends.”

She raised an eyebrow at him. “Did it help?”

Nico hesitated, then said, “I think so. It helped with _him_ , anyway. But I think I made things worse with somebody else.”

“Somebody important?” she asked.

Nico wanted more beer.

“Yeah. Somebody important.”

Reyna pressed a hand to his shoulder. He stiffened and forced himself not to duck away from the touch, waiting for the lecture, for the sermon, for the _‘the things we love have a way of coming back to us in the end_.’ It didn’t come. She just stood there like that, looking at him silently with her dark, emperor’s eyes.

“You already know what I’m going to tell you to do,” she said after what felt like hours. Just barely loud enough to be heard over the roar over the music and the movement and the human heartbeat inside the apartment.

“Yeah,” Nico said.

She shook her head a little. “So what are you waiting for, then?”

 

Reyna walked away not long after, and Nico was alone again. The air in the party felt heavier on Nico’s shoulders, thicker in his lungs. The word _drowning_ floated to the top of his mind again, and he moved without really processing it, out of the thick of the crowd and down the hall, looking for an empty room, a window to open, _something_.

The motion was thoughtless, automatic. He grabbed another drink from the table on his way by and forced himself not to chug it all at once.

Door one was a bathroom. No windows, too small. Next.

Door two was a closet.

Door three.

A bedroom.

(Nico probably should’ve known better, in hindsight.)

That was the back of Connor Stoll’s head; Nico knew it pretty well, he’d stared blankly at it in class enough times. Connor was straddling somebody’s lap, their hands knit in his hair, gross, wet noises coming from the pair of them.

“Shit,” Nico said. “Sorry, wrong door—”

Connor detached himself and turned around. He said, “Oh, hey, di Angelo.” He shrugged a little.

That wasn’t why Nico felt like his stomach was falling out from under him, though.

That wasn’t why the air in his lungs turned to lead.

“Nico!” Will said. He pushed Connor off his lap and leapt to his feet, an arm half-extended, a hand reaching out.

“Sorry,” Nico repeated.

He ran.

 

Down the stairs and out the building and down the street and to the empty, silent quad.

 

_Push it down, push it down._

 

What was he feeling? He wasn’t really sure. Stunned, mostly. If you’d asked him, at the time, that’s what he would’ve told you. See, stunned was easy. Stunned made sense. Stunned was what he could process. The thing bubbling under his skin, the monster gnawing at him from the inside out?

How can you begin to comprehend something like that?

 

Nico had found himself a thick tree, large enough to lean against, and settled there, mostly consumed by shadows, mostly built of night. This was better, this was _right_. Alone in the dark. What he had been made for.

Will caught up to him, though. Of course he did.

“Nico?” he said again, very quietly.

When Nico didn’t answer, he sat down.

They stayed like that for a while – silent, cradled in darkness like the night was cupping them in its palms. Will had positioned himself just far enough away that Nico could hear his breathing. Not close, shoulders brushing, knees touching, like he usually did.

Like he used to.

“Do you hate me?”

 “ _What_?”

Will was looking at him. He could feel it, catch the occasional flash of light reflecting off his eyes in the almost-blackness.

“Do you hate me?”

“Why the fuck would I hate you, Solace?”

Will seemed very small, all of a sudden. Very delicate. Very afraid.

For Nico, it was like looking into a mirror.

“Because I’m bi,” Will said, helplessly. “Because I didn’t tell you. Because we fought, and I said things I didn’t mean. Lots of reasons.”

“Oh,” Nico said. “No. I don’t hate you for that.”

“But you do hate me.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You implied it—”

Nico reached out without realizing it, and then their fingers were knit together, and he was saying in a very fierce, very low whisper, “I don’t hate you. Understand me? I’ll never hate you.”

Will’s hand was shaking.

 “You haven’t heard the worst part yet,” he said. “I think you’ll definitely hate me after you hear it.”

“I think you should probably tell me when you’re sober.”

“I’m a little drunk, Nico.”

“I know.”

“But I think I should tell you now. Okay?”

Nico hesitated, then affirmed, “Okay.”

“I want to kiss you,” Will said, and Nico’s heart stopped beating. “Not because I’m drunk. I want to kiss you all the time. And I didn’t want… I never wanted…” He took a deep, shuddering breath. “I know you need space. I get that. But I still want to kiss you.”

“Oh,” Nico said.

“I thought you hated me,” Will finished miserably.

“Oh,” Nico said again.

There was a rustling as Will moved, made to get up. “Sorry,” he said. “I did warn you that was the worst part.”

He was leaving.

He was getting up and he was going and Nico couldn’t – _wouldn’t_ – let it end like this, so he reached up without thinking and yanked Will back down, so that they sat face-to-face in the semi-darkness. Eye-to-eye.

Nose-to-nose.

Will’s breath was on Nico’s lips. He smelled like cologne and alcohol and the too-sweet orange gum he liked to chew.

“I want to kiss you, too,” Nico whispered. "Idiot."

Will’s breathing stopped.

“Oh,” he whispered.

“Yeah,” Nico said. “But not… like this.” _Not after we’ve been fighting. Not when I feel like crying and my hands are sweaty and my chest feels like it’s going to implode on itself._

_Not with the taste of alcohol on my tongue._

_Not with the taste of Connor Stoll on yours._

“No,” Will agreed. “Not like this.” But neither of them moved, neither pulled away, and so they sat there like that, folded in the darkness, breathing each other’s air, fingers intertwined. There was no passionate embrace, no fireworks, no flower petals, just the quiet violence of the feeling of Will’s skin touching his own, and it was enough, Nico thought.

It was enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ooh, this was a hard one to write (sorry if I fooled you into thinking they were going to kiss, it was necessary, I swear - mostly, necessary, anyway).  
> Thanks as always for sticking with me, leaving kudos, and commenting. You guys are wonderful x100.


	12. Sunshine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> YES! A HAPPY CHAPTER!!! NOBODY CRIES!!! THERE IS HUMOR ONCE MORE!!!  
> Or, in which Nico is hungover and finds Will sleeping on his couch.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Look at the stars  
> Look how they shine for you  
> And everything you do  
> Yeah, they were all yellow."  
> -Coldplay (Yellow)

sun·shine

ˈsənˌSHīn/

_noun_

1\. Direct sunlight unbroken by cloud, especially over a comparatively large area.

2\. Cheerfulness; happiness.

 

“Nico.”

There was a drumbeat in Nico’s temples.

“Hey, di Angelo.”

His tongue felt like it was coated in cotton.

“Nico, come on.”

Hangover. That was the diagnosis Nico came up with in his head. Too much to drink.

The Stoll’s Halloween party. Right.

Was he forgetting something?

 “ _Nico,_ wake the _fuck_ up _,_ there’s a man sleeping on our couch!”

 _Will_.

Nico shot upright, retrained a little by the way his sheet was twisted around his chest and legs, and immediately wished he hadn’t; the effect was similar to the time on his high school soccer team when he’d gotten kicked in the head.

“Oh, fucking hell.”

What was in those goddamn drinks?

“Don’t lie back down, di Angelo, there is a _man_ sleeping on our _couch_!”

Leo was standing at the end of Nico’s bed, his mess of dark curls sticking up in about fifty different directions on his head. He was wearing pajama pants and his MY ROBOT BRINGS ALL THE BOYS TO THE YARD t-shirt from his freshman year robotics team, stained with grease and torn at the sleeve. It looked like he’d forgotten to shave for awhile, the ghost of stubble on his chin and above his mouth, and there was what looked like a piece of duct tape stuck to his cheek.

“You’ve got a little something,” Nico mumbled, pointing at the tape.

Leo tore it off his cheek impatiently. “Are you not _listening_ to me?”

Nico rolled over and buried his face in the pillow. “No, I totally am. Man. On our couch. Great. Leave me alone.”

“It’s that guy from upstairs.”

“I know.”

That was half-true. Nico vaguely remembered walking home with Will after—

After they—

“He took my fuzzy Doctor Who blanket.”

“And I think Buford peed in his shoes.”

 _Shit_.

“Oi, are you still alive over there?”

Had Nico seriously walked in on Will making out with Connor Stoll? Had Will come out as bisexual?

Had they _confessed mutual attraction_?

What in the actual _hell?_

“He’s not wearing a shirt.”

Nico sucked in his air too quickly and choked on the pillowcase his face was buried in. He rolled back over, coughing, trying to smother the sound with his hands.

Leo scowled at him. “Sure, _now_ you pay attention.”

“He’s not hurting anything,” Nico said. “Just leave him. I’ll deal with it later.”

“There is a _strange_ shirtless _man_ sleeping on our _couch_ —”

“Okay, okay, fine, I’m getting up.” Nico swung his legs out of bed. His head swam and he had to catch himself on the nightstand, but progress had been made, and that seemed close to miraculous right now.

Seemingly mollified, Leo left, grumbling about how _nobody ever runs stuff by me_ , and _I think he’s drooling on the pillows._

It took a couple minutes for Nico to get fully upright and out of bed, and significantly longer to peel off his wrinkled clothes from the night before. His hair was sticking up in the front, refusing to lie flat no matter how many times he wrestled a brush through it.

When he went to leave the room, though, he froze. His fingers closed on the doorknob and he stared at the wood. His chest felt funny, his throat thick, his mouth dry. He stumbled backwards and sat down hard on his bed, looking down at his hands.

What was wrong with him? Why was his breath catching in his chest? Why was his pulse pounding so hard?

He was scared.

That’s right. Nico di Angelo, who’d walked through hell and lived to tell the tale, was _scared_.

Of a blond boy with freckles?

 _Stupid_ , his mind whispered. _It’s Will. What are you afraid of?_

Nothing had changed, and yet everything had.

Was it the taste of Will’s breath on his lips?

Was it the emptiness between his fingers, where Will’s had fit like puzzle pieces?

Was it Will’s voice, playing in Nico’s mind, over and over and over again, like a mantra, like a requiem?

I want to kiss you.

I want to kiss you.

I want to kiss you.

Nico buried his face in his hands. His skin felt too hot, his pulse too wild.

There was a pounding at the door and Nico’s head jerked upright. “Di Angelo, he’s still on the goddamn couch and I want to watch the goddamn Discovery Channel—”

_No good, no good, no good._

He took a deep breath and got to his feet.

 

Despite his assertions, Leo had disappeared into his bedroom before Nico emerged from his. He approached the couch carefully, like it was a wild animal.

Will lay on his back, his limbs splayed, one leg dangling off the couch, foot brushing the floor, the other hooked over the back. Leo’s blanket was mostly on the floor, Will’s shirt in a heap a couple feet away.

Nico felt slightly ill.

_Don’t look at him. Just keep your eyes on the ceiling, or on the wall, or—_

Then Will shifted, made a soft noise at the back of his throat, and Nico was staring at him, and the rest of the world sort of just…

That was stupid, wasn’t it? So cliché. But Will was _beautiful_ , and, to Nico, there was nothing, nothing at all that mattered except for committing this to memory – all Will’s harsh lines and soft curves, his defined muscles and smooth, tan skin, and freckles scattered like stars tracing a line down to his navel. His hair was falling across his eyes, his lips – full and pink and soft-looking – parted slightly, his breathing quiet and steady, like music.

He hurt to look at, like starlight.

Nico wanted to touch him.

He wanted to brush Will’s hair out of his face and trace his fingers across Will’s lips and kiss each and every single one of Will’s freckles, follow the path all the way down his stomach, all the way down his body. His body felt funny, too hot, and he knew he should probably turn away – that was the right thing to do, the _safe_ thing to do – but instead he was stuck, frozen.

 _God_ , Nico wanted to touch him.

“Solace,” he said. His voice came out wrong, too ragged, too rough, so he cleared his throat and tried again. “Solace. Hey, _Solace_.”

Will’s eyelashes fluttered, sandy blonde against his cheeks. He shifted a little, forehead furrowing.

“Will,” Nico said, because his mouth wanted to taste the word, feel the shape of the name.

Blue eyes met dark ones. There was a moment of something quiet and miraculous, in which they watched each other silently, and Nico forced himself to stay still, not reach out.

Then Will rolled over and groaned, pressing his face into the couch cushions. “I think I might be dying,” he announced.

The moment shattered. Nico rolled his eyes and grabbed Will’s shirt off the floor, tossing it at him. “That’s a hangover. Don’t be such a princess.”

Will groaned again, louder and more dramatically this time. “Tell my family I loved them.”

“Get up and tell them yourself. Leo wants the couch.”

Will’s shoulders froze. He paused, and then turned slowly around to face Nico, his eyes wide.

“Did you _kidnap_ me, di Angelo?”

“Don’t be stupid,” Nico grumped. “And put your _shirt_ on.”

Will blinked at him bemusedly but pulled the shirt over his head anyway, and hell if Nico didn’t just about collapse into a puddle at his feet.

(Nico wasn’t quite sure why there was something even _more_ sensual about getting-dressed-Will than already-naked-Will, about the way his torso stretched as he moved his arms above his head, but there was a steady heat dangerously low in Nico’s stomach, and he didn’t know how much more of this he could take.)

“You’re staring at me,” Will pointed out. His ears looked a little pink.

Nico’s jaw snapped shut and he forced himself to look away, out the window, anywhere.

“I don’t mind, sunshine.”

Will’s gaze was on the floor, the shadow of a smile ghosting across his lips, the redness in his ears spreading across his cheekbones.

Nico grumbled, “Sunshine. That’s almost worse than Death Boy.”

“Almost worse! That means better!” Will beamed at him. “Sunshine it is.”

“You’re not calling me sunshine.”

“I totally am, sunshine.”

“No. No way.”

“Oh, come on, you never let me have any fun, sunshine.”

“I changed my mind, Death Boy is better.”

“It’s too late, sunshine…”

“ _Solace_ —”

“I’ll stop if you call me Will again.”

Nico froze.

“What?”

“Just now. Well. Five minutes ago, anyway. When you were waking me up. That was the first time you’d called me by my name.” He looked up at Nico, hesitated, and then said, “I liked it.”

_I want to kiss you._

_I want to kiss you._

_I want to kiss you._

Nico’s face felt like it was on fire. “Will.”

There it was again: points of pressure like physical contact when their eyes met.

Will said, very matter-of-factly, “You’re cute when you blush.”

_Fucking hell._

“About last night—” Nico started, just as Will said, “We should probably talk—”

Nico pressed his mouth shut and motioned for Will to continue.

“We made up, didn’t we?” Will frowned and rubbed his forehead. “It’s all a little blurry. I think I drank too much.”

He didn’t remember?

 _He didn’t remember_.

Well. Maybe that was a good thing. Will probably would’ve regretted telling him. He probably didn’t mean it, anyway – he’d been drunk out of his mind, after all. Let him stay blurry. Let him forget. If it meant Nico could keep looking at him, memorizing the shapes of his features and the width of his shoulders, then Nico didn’t really care if he remembered.

“Yeah, we made up.” Nico hesitated, and then said, “I don’t think I apologized, though. I’m sorry. _Really_ sorry. I hurt you, and then I didn’t know how to fix it. But I’m not – I’m no good with—”

“I know, I know; you’re no good with people.” Will shook his head and grinned. “You can tell me that all you want, di Angelo. You’re not going to scare me off.”

“I’m not trying to scare you,” Nico snapped.

“No? Why are you glaring at me, then?”

“This is my default expression.”

Will snorted, then broke down laughing, deep in his chest.

The sound was heady and loud and filled the room. Nico imagined that if it had a color, it would be yellow-golden and luminescent.

Nico’s mouth quirked up, and then Will sucked in his breath too hard and started coughing and laughing at the same time, and then Nico was laughing, too. Hard laughter. Shake-your-shoulders laughter. Stomach-aching laughter.

(The things he lost knocked on the corners of Nico’s mind, because when was the last time he’d laughed like this? Before the accident, probably. But he was wrapped in the Will’s yellow-golden laughter, and they stayed buried.

It was some kind of magic, something the fairy tales never mentioned.)

“Hey, Nico,” Will said after awhile, when they were both clutching their chests and panting for breath. “I’m not quite sure, but I think I remember… Did I really make out with Connor Stoll?”

Nico wheezed instead of answering. “You looked like you were enjoying it,” he managed, when he finally subdued the giggles.

Will looked mortified.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ONE MILLION DOLLARS TO WHOEVER DRAWS ME LEO IN HIS 'MY ROBOT BRINGS ALL THE BOYS TO THE YARD' T-SHIRT. BONUS POINTS FOR STUBBLE AND BEDHEAD.


	13. Epiphany

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Of middle-of-the-night cellphone calls, spontaneous field trips to unknown locations, and the imperfect science of falling in love.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "'Hope' is the thing with feathers -  
> That perches in the soul -  
> And sings the tune without the words -  
> And never stops - at all -"  
> -Emily Dickinson ("'Hope' is the thing with feathers")
> 
> Um so [this](http://teenagethalia.tumblr.com/post/115903898633/older-leo-for-theroyalsavages-fanfic-x) happened.  
> (I'm not gonna say I screamed but I totally screamed.)  
> I had so. much. fun. writing. this. chapter. I hope you guys have fun reading it, too, because it's probably one of my favorites yet.

e·piph·a·ny

əˈpifənē/

_noun_

A moment of sudden revelation or insight.

 

A week passed. And then another.

Nico found himself inundated with the sheer amount of things he needed to get done. There wasn’t much time for anything except the walks from the apartment to the library and back, and that was probably a good thing, because the more Nico allowed himself to think, the more stir-crazy he seemed to become.

The weather got colder.

The skies got grayer.

And Nico was losing his mind.

Will was back to acting exactly as he had for most of their relationship. He’d never once mentioned the almost-kiss incident, only referenced the party in passing, and seemed cheerfully oblivious whenever Nico tried to hint at the subject and get him to talk.

Well. At least he didn’t show any inclination of wanting to make out with Connor Stoll again.

 

On the Saturday night exactly three weeks after The Incident, Nico was at his desk, working on a particularly painful essay and fielding texts from his sister.

 

FROM: Hazel, 1:14 AM

You said you were gonna talk to him, neeks. are you just gonna avoid the subject forever? The Halloween Fiasco isn’t going to un-happen just because you’re refusing to talk about it

 

TO: Hazel, 1:14 AM

I’m not avoiding the subject. If he asks me whether he told me he wanted to kiss me, I will tell him yes.

 

FROM: Hazel, 1:15 AM

You said he forgot, though??? he’s not going to ask you if he forgot

 

TO: Hazel, 1:15 AM

 Exactly.

 

FROM: Hazel, 1:15 AM

Why don’t you just TALK TO HIM?? do you not WANT to kiss him

 

TO: Hazel, 1:16 AM

No, I definitely want to kiss him.

 

FROM: Hazel, 1:17 AM

Then what’s the problem?

 

TO: Hazel, 1:17 AM

Because literally why on god’s good earth would he want to kiss _me_?

 

The next time his phone buzzed, he reached over and pulled it to him automatically. However, it didn’t stop vibrating, and Nico blinked down in surprise to see Will’s name flashing on the screen.

He picked it up slowly and pressed the ‘accept call’ button, hoping to God he hadn’t sent that last text to the wrong person.

“Solace?”

Will’s voice on the other line was loud and chipper. Not appropriate for an early-morning phone call. “Nico! You’re still awake! I thought I saw a light on down there.”

“What’s going on? Is everything okay?”

“Oh, yeah, everything’s fine.”

Nico sighed and tried not to sound too exasperated when he asked, “Then why…?”

“I just wanted to hear your voice.”

His heart leapt up into his throat.

_How do you respond to something like that?_

Nico took a second to steady his voice before muttering, “You’re such a dork.”

“Yep!” There was a note of pride in his voice that made Nico smile. “What are you doing right now?”

“Writing an essay analyzing the nature of Patroclus and Achilles’ relationship.”

Will hesitated, then said, “Sounds… interesting?”

“They were super gay for each other, so sort of interesting, yeah.”

Will laughed. He was quiet for a moment, so Nico wedged the phone between his ear and his shoulder and scribbled a couple notes down on the sheet of paper in front of him, then opened a desk drawer and rummaged around for a highlighter.

“Hey, Nico?”

“Hmm?”

“If you could be anywhere in the world, where would you want to be?”

Nico located the marker he’d been looking for, slid the door shut, and straightened up. “It’s one in the morning, Solace.”

“Well spotted. If you could be anywhere in the world, where would you want to be?”

Nico hesitated, then said, “On a swing set.”

“A swing set?”

“I like swings. I’ve always liked swings. Is that a problem?”

Will was quiet for a second, then he said, “Meet me outside. I’ve got a surprise for you.”

Maybe it was because it was late, and Nico was tired enough that his inhibitions had been dialed back. Maybe it was because he was trying to grow as a person, become more spontaneous.

Maybe it was because he trusted Will Solace.

Maybe it was because the timbre of Will’s voice over the phone, laughing and asking questions like the answer actually mattered, made something inside Nico feel quiet and infinite and _home_.

Whatever the reason, Nico shoved his homework aside, pulled his jacket on over his old t-shirt and sweatpants, and left the apartment, closing doors quietly so as not to disturb Leo. His footsteps made sharp noises on the stairs.

Will had beat him outside. He was sitting on a bench beside the sidewalk, wearing a black jacket and a light blue scarf. His cheeks were reddening already in the cold air, his breath rising in light, wispy clouds in front of his face.

When Nico got close enough, Will stood and smiled at him.

“Follow me,” he said.

 

They walked close together, shoulders bumping every once in awhile. Will talked about winter, about the taste of snow and the feeling of frost. When he caught Nico staring at him, his ears turned red and he looked at the sidewalk, smiling a little. Nico looked away, too.

Their arms brushed again, and this time, neither pulled away. Instead, Will’s fingers twined themselves through Nico’s, and they were holding hands.

“Is this okay?” Will asked.

_Nothing has ever been more okay._

Nico shrugged and tried to cover his growing blush behind his free hand. “Where are we going?”

“Not telling! I don’t wanna ruin the surprise.”

He groaned. “Solace—”

“Nope!”

They left campus, walking towards the residential areas of the town that surrounded Olympus University. Nico ran options through his head, trying to figure out where the hell they were going, but whenever he interrupted Will’s cheerful chatter to ask, the taller boy shook his head and lilted, “Not telling.”

And then Will tugged him off the road onto a side path, and they crested a hill, and Nico understood.

In the center of an open field sat a swing set, like on the playgrounds of elementary schools. The kind he used to play on when he was a kid. The grass was overly long around it, like somebody had built it and then forgot about it, leaving it to rust.

“You’re kidding,” Nico said.

“Nope!” Will squeezed his fingers. “Ta-dah! Aren’t you glad you came?”

Nico blinked at him and allowed himself to be led over to the swings.

“I’ll bet you I can get higher than you,” Will said.

The disbelief faded a little. Nico snorted and said, “You’re on.”

 

“You see that band of three stars over there? That’s Orion’s belt.”

“Orion,” Nico repeated. “The hunter.”

Will reached over and tilted Nico’s chin up so that his head was pointed in the correct direction. “Up there. You know the story?”

“He was the greatest hunter who ever lived, slain by Gaea’s scorpion after he threatened to kill every beast on earth. After he died, Zeus put his body in the stars, and the scorpion’s as well. That the one?”

Will looked pleased. “Exactly. At the shoulder is the supergiant star Betelgeuse. The really bright one. Do you see it?”

Nico squinted. “Yes?”

“It’s near the end of its life. When it dies, it’ll explode in a supernova, and the light will be bright enough that we’ll be able to see it glowing during the day.”

“How do you know so much about stars?”

“My dad was an astronomer. He used to drag me out of bed in the middle of the night to test me on constellations.” Will smiled a little, looking up at the sky with something exceedingly gentle in his eyes.

Nico didn’t miss the past tense.

“What happened?”

“He left.” Will shrugged. “I used to wait on our porch for him to come home from work, and then one day, he just… didn’t. I was eight.”

“Do you know where he went?”

“Nah. Neither does Mom. He left like everything was normal. I think I’ve spent every day since expecting him to turn up at my bedroom door like he used to, asking me about Leo the Lion.”

They sat like that, side-by-side, in silence. Then Nico said, very quietly, “My dad didn’t leave, but he might as well have. By the time I was a teenager, he barely even looked at me.” Nico’s fingers clenched around the chains of his swing. “The worst part was remembering, you know? I could picture his laugh perfectly, and I just… Missed him. I missed him and he was right in front of me.”

Will said, “That’s terrible.”

“At least I still had him there, though. Yours left completely.”

“Yeah, but… okay this is going to sound crazy. But even after he left, I never felt like he was _gone_ , you know? He’d left pieces of himself inside me. Like my eyes. Like loving the stars. That’s the nature of loving somebody, I think. You give them parts of you, and they give you parts of them, and somehow you both become better that way.”

That was beautiful.

What the fuck?

Who talked like that? Who said things like _that’s the nature of loving somebody_? Who grew up feeling abandoned by his father, never sure what had happened, never sure what he’d lost, and still turned out cheerful and stubborn and lovely and kind?

God, Will was so _beautiful_.

“Why didn’t you become an astronomer, too?”

“Because I wanted to be my own person, you know? I didn’t want to spend my whole life chasing after a guy who disappeared. And I wanted to _help_ people, to make the world better.” He shot Nico a sideways smile. “I’m gonna travel the world, and I’m gonna save lives, and then I’m gonna come home and have my own kids and never, ever abandon them. My dad left me _that_ too.”

It was dark and it was cold, but, the funny thing was, it didn’t matter. Nico was full of golden light, full of Will’s voice and Will’s smile and Will’s laugh, full of the touch of Will’s fingertips, full of the scar over his eyebrow and the freckles on his cheekbones and the tiny gap between his front teeth. Full of pieces of Will.

So, so in love with him.

Before he was entirely sure what he was doing, he reached over and grabbed one of the chains of Will’s swing, tugging it towards him. Will’s eyes widened slightly, and then Nico squeezed his own shut and pressed their lips together.

It wasn’t great; Nico was terrified, so their mouths collided too hard and too fast, and then he pulled away sharply, releasing his hold on Will’s swing.

“Sorry—”

Will made an impatient noise, reached out, grabbed the collar of Nico’s coat, and yanked him back, capturing the apology before it had a chance to fully escape. Nico’s voice died in his throat.

Will’s mouth was warm and soft, his lips a little chapped, his breath a little minty. His hand came up and cupped Nico’s cheek, his thumb tracing a tattoo across the skin. Nico sighed and tilted his head forward. Their lips parted, mouths fitting like puzzle pieces. Will’s tongue traced Nico’s lower lip, Nico’s hands coming up to knit in Will’s hair, leaning towards the taller boy so that their chests were pressed together.

The swing tilted underneath him and then they were tumbling, and Nico was suddenly staring up at the sky, Will a warm weight on top of him, bracing his weight with his hands on either side of Nico’s head.

“Oops,” Nico said. And then he dissolved into laughter, and the dumbstruck look on Will’s face melted into giggles, too, and then they were kissing again.

It was sloppy and stupid and tasted of laughter, Nico’s hands on Will’s face, Will’s voice a contented hum in his chest. The golden light inside of Nico seemed to have expanded, morphed, engulfed the entire world. He was cupped inside summer, touching Will, made of electricity and nerves and something beautiful and elemental and pure.

Will pulled away and looked down at Nico. A slightly dangerous smile crossed his face and he said, “Wow, yeah, I’m really glad I was sober for that.”

Nico blinked. “What.”

“Don’t get mad.”

“Solace…”

Will pouted.

“You said you forgot!”

“I did!” He shrugged sheepishly and then continued, quieter, “And then I remembered again.”

Nico groaned and shoved Will off of him. Will gasped and dramatically flopped over, crashing to the ground on his back and clutching his stomach.

“You could’ve told me,” Nico grumbled.

“Nah. That wasn’t exactly my shining hour. I was _so_ embarrassed when I finally figured out what happened. Jesus, I sort of wish I _didn’t_ remember it.”

They lay on the ground like that, staring up at the sky, Will’s arm pressing against Nico’s. Their fingers twined together again, and Will lifted their hands to press his lips against the back of Nico’s.

“Nico?”

“Hmm?”

Will’s voice took on a teasing note. “If you could be anywhere in the world, where would you want to be?”

_Here. Just here, like this._

Nico rolled his eyes. “Aruba.”

“Huh. That one might be a little harder than a swing set.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To those of you screaming "FINALLY": me too, my friends. Me too.  
> I'm expecting this fic to have another four or five chapters at most unless it really gets away from me. There is a plan, I promise (I'm not just making it up as I go along. Probably.)  
> Thanks as always to everyone leaving kudos and commenting. You guys are precious and I love you SO SO much.


	14. Effervescent

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Nico begins the long road to getting his shit together - both with Will and with his family.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Secret love, my escape  
> Take me far, far away  
> Secret love, are you there?  
> Will you answer my prayer?  
> Please take me anywhere but here."  
> -Mayday Parade (Anywhere But Here)
> 
> So! One week and one god-awful stomach bug later, here I am! Alive! Only somewhat exhausted! Only like four days later than I thought I was going to be!  
> Thanks for bearing with me, children. I owe you muchos.

ef·fer·ves·cent

ˌefərˈves(ə)nt/

_adjective_

**1**. (Of a liquid) giving off bubbles; fizzy.

**2**. Vivacious and enthusiastic.

 

Memories like the ones that followed Nico di Angelo and Will Solace’s first kiss are effervescent.

They are light in the stomach, light on the tongue, the taste of yellow and nervous smiles and trembling, careful fingers. These are the memories you cling to in the middle of the night, when you wake up cold and panting, the screams of a car’s failing brakes in your ears. These are the memories you hold cupped between your palms when you’re sitting in calculus or standing in line at the grocery store or walking back to your apartment, alone.

These are the memories of fingers touching while you’re standing in line waiting for your coffee, and not forcing yourself to pull away. Linked pinkies, linked gazes.

These are the memories of careful smiles and darting glances, of crimson blushes on freckled cheeks.

“Nico?” Will asked, once, about a week after their first kiss. They were on the couch in Will’s apartment, Wii remotes in hand, and Will didn’t look away from their game.

Nico was lousy at Mario Kart, but Will was lousier – probably because he insisted on being Baby Peach every race.

 “Nico. What are we?”

“What do you mean?”

“Like…” Nico glanced at Will out of the corner of his eye. The tips of his ears had turned bright red. “Okay, you know what, never mind. I sound like a preteen girl, even in my head.”

Nico hesitated, then hit pause on the game. He turned himself, crossing his legs underneath him so that he could face Will completely.

He didn’t say anything, just kept looking. Will’s cheeks continued to redden, until he finally mumbled, “Like. Can I be your boyfriend? Wait. Um. Hang on, that sounded stupid. Are we…? No, _wait_ , um—”

“I like you.”

Will froze, his face now an almost alarming shade of crimson.

Nico repeated, “I like you. A lot. But I’m not… that is…” He hesitated, then finished, “Four people in the world know I’m about as straight as a circle. Two of them are in this room.”

Will mouthed, _oh_ , silently. “You’re not out.”

“No.”

He reached out and brushed his fingers through Nico’s bangs gently, almost reverently. “Would your parents… y’know… Would they accept you?”

That was the question, wasn’t it? His stepmom probably wouldn’t mind. Seph had never cared about stuff like that, hadn’t batted an eye when they passed a queer couple on the street. She’d always said that people gave each other a hard enough time about race and religion; after all, growing up in a black household in the Deep South, segregation wasn’t so much a distant memory than a painful, embarrassing reality.

“Listen to me, Nico di Angelo,” she’d said to him, once. “There’s enough to hate people about in this world. Don’t you _ever_ add love to that list, you understand?”

He’d nodded, and neglected to mention the private war he was waging inside his mind.

Hades was different. He liked things nice, neat, orderly. He liked _control_. Nico was already a problem, with his stupid punk tattoos and his stupid punk haircut and his stupid punk taste in music and clothing.

That wasn’t the only problem, though. It never had been.

Mostly, Nico just couldn’t accept _himself_.

It wasn’t the gayness. That was only a part of the equation. The rest was simply his own bad wiring, trapped underneath his skin.

He couldn’t imagine a world in which he didn’t dislike himself. And that was the long and short of it.

And so, Nico shrugged.

“We don’t have to tell anyone,” Will said immediately. “I really don’t mind. It’ll be like a game! Only with, you know, kissing and potentially holding hands sometimes.”

Nico shook his head and tried to stifle a smile. “No.”

Will repeated, “No?” A trace of the kicked-puppy expression started to inch its way onto his face.

Understandably enough, Nico panicked. “No! I mean… I just… I don’t want… You’re not shameful, you know? Not some dirty secret I want to keep hidden. That’s not fair to you.”

Of course it wasn’t. _None_ of this was fair to Will – expecting him to handle Nico’s oddities, forcing him to dance around Nico’s mood swings.

_I’m sorry,_ he wanted to shout. _I don’t know what’s wrong with me._

_I’m sorry._

“Just… give me time, okay?” he finished, quietly.

Will beamed at him. “We have all the time in the world.”

(Happiness is carbonated, fizzy.)

Nico rolled his eyes and grabbed Will’s shoulders, guiding their mouths together. Their lips met softly, slowly, Will humming contentedly deep in his throat and then pulling Nico down on top of him.

Things became bright and blurry.

The video game stayed paused.

These memories were like feathers, delicate and plumed and graceful.

(Nico kept them wrapped around his shoulders like a blanket, like a shield, and the viscous ones stayed trapped below, like a miracle.)

 

The end of November meant Thanksgiving break. Nico got a text from his stepmom, Seph, midway through the first week of the month, informing him that she’d purchased him a plane ticket and expected him home Wednesday evening. There was an underlying threat there, carried over from freshman year, when he’d ‘accidentally’ missed his flight and ended up staying with Piper, whose movie-star father had an apartment in Manhattan.

_We miss you, sweetie,_ she’d said.

Funny, but Nico didn’t see his _dad_ going too far out of his way to send a text or two.

It was hard to concentrate in the last week or so of class. He wasn’t sleeping well; thoughts of Seattle were almost always accompanied by resurgences of the nightmares.

(There are some things a few happy memories cannot fix.)

Regardless, the day before Thanksgiving found Nico flying home, unwilling to face Seph’s wrath – or Hazel’s, for that matter. Frank was on the same flight, a couple rows in front, and the look he’d given Nico when they boarded spoke volumes: _if you cut out on me now, your sister will never forgive me_.

Nico sighed and shook his head. _Don’t I know it_.

He’d brought some books along with him, but none of his homework got done. Instead, he drifted off to sleep, and dreamed of blood-soaked fingers and the sickly-sweet, sterile scent of an emergency room.

 

They took a taxi away from the airport, Frank drowsing beside Nico, his head flopping forward and snapping back up every once in awhile, when they hit a large bump or the driver stopped too sharply.

The pleather seats smelled like feet and cheap air freshener. Nico buried his face in the collar of his sweatshirt and tried to breathe through the fabric.

 

FROM: Solace, 8:56 PM

ur flight get in ok?

 

TO: Solace, 8:57 PM

Yeah, we landed about half an hour ago. What about you?

 

FROM: Solace, 8:57 PM

yep! no problems here

FROM: Solace, 8:58 PM

its rly frickin hot tho

 

Nico bit down hard on his bottom lip and tried desperately not to picture sweaty, shirtless Will on a California beach.

His mind did not cooperate.

 

TO: Solace, 8:58 PM

Can’t say I’ve got that problem. It’s been raining since we got here.

 

FROM: Solace, 8:59 PM

r u telling me that u, DEATH BOY, prefer sun to rain????

 

TO: Solace, 9:00 PM

I wouldn’t go that far. And don’t call me death boy.

 

Outside the windows, the city receded, marching backwards like a retreating line of soldiers, uniformed in gray. Outskirts became suburbs became neighborhoods, and, finally, the taxi driver turned into a line of houses that crouched on top of hills like lurking dragons, waiting monsters, black behemoths cloaked in smoke and trees and gated, electric fences.

 

FROM: Solace, 9:03 PM

oh, thats right, i forgot u prefer sunshine now

 

TO: Solace, 9:07 PM

Oh, that’s right, I forgot you were an idiot.

 

FROM: Solace, 9:08 PM

Ouch. You cut me deep, love. You cut me real deep.

 

_At least they left the lights on_ , Nico thought.

In the driveway, they unloaded their bags from the trunk, paid the driver, and watched him pull away. Nico stood silently, hands clenched into fists at his sides, and kept his eyes trained on the taillights of the taxi, retreating into the mostly-darkness.

“Ready to go inside?” Frank asked, softly.

“Yeah, sorry, let’s go.”

The house was just like he remembered it: too big and too quiet. The air smelled vaguely of dust and the fancy products their cleaning crew used. Voices could be heard to the back of the house, in the formal dining room Hades only bothered using when they had visitors or on holidays.

“You think they’d forgive me if I just went into my room and fell asleep now?” Nico muttered to Frank, who looked appalled.

“If you leave me alone now, _I_ won’t forgive you,” he hissed back.

“You could come. I think I’ve got an old sleeping bag in the back of my closet—”

“Hazel would find us—”

“What are you boys whispering about?”

Nico and Frank both shot upright and whipped around. Persephone di Angelo stood behind them, her arms crossed over her chest and a half-smile on her lips.

“Hey, Mrs. di Angelo,” Frank offered sheepishly.

Seph shook her head. “Leave your bags in the hall, we can bring them upstairs later.” Ever graceful – even in sweatpants, with her long dreadlocks pulled into a messy bun – she swept forward and pulled them each into a hug, one by one. Nico’s shoulders stiffened and he pulled away from the touch automatically. “Who wants dinner?”

From the dining room, Nico could hear Hazel shouting, “ _Is that them_?”

Frank brightened immediately, and Nico managed a small smile despite himself.

 

FROM: Solace, 10:15 PM

is everything going ok with ur family?

 

TO: Solace, 10:16 PM

We just finished eating dinner and Hazel challenged Frank to a Just Dance battle, so it’s all pretty okay, I guess.

TO: Solace, 10:16 PM

Dad’s not here. Seph says he’s on a business trip, getting home tomorrow morning.

 

FROM: Solace, 10:17 PM

what does ur dad do for work?

 

TO: Solace, 10:18 PM

You’re going to laugh. I don’t want to tell you.

 

FROM: Solace, 10:22 PM

WHAT? im not going to laugh. i would NEVER…

 

TO: Solace, 10:24 PM

Yeah, okay, sure.

 

FROM: Solace, 10:26 PM

i promiseeeeee~

FROM: Solace, 10:26 PM

please?

 

TO: Solace, 10:30 PM

Okay. Fine. He does banking, mostly. And also… he owns funeral parlors.

 

FROM: Solace, 10:30 PM

omg

 

TO: Solace, 10:30 PM

YOU SAID YOU WOULDN’T LAUGH.

 

FROM: Solace, 10:31 PM

im not laughing!! ok, maybe i am laughing a little. just a little though

FROM: Solace, 10:32 PM

it IS pretty funny

FROM: Solace, 10:32 PM

u rly ARE death boy

 

TO: Solace, 10:34 PM

I hate you.

 

FROM: Solace, 10:34 PM

u didn’t seem to hate me very much when u were sticking ur tongue in my mouth

 

TO: Solace, 10:35 PM

FOR CHRIST’S SAKE, WILL.

 

“Hey, Seph?”

Expression neutral, Seph set her newspaper aside and pulled the reading glasses off her nose to peer up at him. He felt awkward, wrong, like he was standing naked underneath a spotlight.

They didn’t need to have this conversation.

He could just thank her for dinner and then put it off for another twenty years.

He could disappoint Will.

He could.

(He couldn’t.)

“Can I talk to you about something?”

She nodded at the seat next to her and raised an eyebrow at him. “Is that even a question, Nicky?”

Nico sat down, probably more violently than he needed to. His stomach felt knotted, wrapped around itself. “It’s sort of… complicated, I guess. I just wanted to… that is, I…”

“Is this about the boy you’ve been texting?”

Nico blinked. “What.”

“You left your phone on the table when you got up to go to the bathroom. When it vibrated, I asked your sister whether you were texting Jason Grace, and she said she thought you were probably talking to somebody named Will. Is that correct?”

Nico said, “Um.”

She nodded and crossed her arms over her chest decisively. “Right. Nico, you know I love you no matter what, right?”

“Yes, but—”

“That means no conditions.”

“I know, but—”

“Of any kind.”

“I _know_ —”

“At all—”

“I’m _gay,_ Seph,” he burst out, exasperated.

And then it was out. _He_ was out. God, what a bizarre feeling.

Her expression remained unchanged for a moment, and then Seph’s lips quirked up into a small smile and she reached out to pat Nico’s hair down. “I know, sweetie.”

Something seemed to crumble inside him.

“You… _what_? You _know_?”

She sighed. “Of course. Ever since you were little. You think I didn’t see how you looked at Percy Jackson? I’m your mom, kiddo. It’s my job to notice that stuff.”

“But… but you never…”

“Said anything? No. Your sexuality is yours to figure out and work through. It’s not my place to step in and start making your choices and your discoveries for you. That’s not the way the world works, and it wouldn’t have been fair to you.”

“O—oh. Well. Okay, then.” Nico hesitated, then said, “Does Dad know?”

Seph scowled a little. “The situation with your father is… different. I’m not saying he wouldn’t accept you, sweetie, because he _will_ , someday, but I just… I think we should work on him, a little. Get him used to the idea. Now that you’re ready.” She leveled a glare at him. “ _Together_.”

“Yes,” Nico said. His body felt numb.

“I’m proud of you, you know.”

“Yes.”

“ _Really_ proud.”

“Yes.”

“So is your boyfriend cute?”

“Ye– _Seph_.”

She winked at him. “Sorry, sorry.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> These last couple chapters have been very difficult to write for me, because my initial instinct was to make everything happy and fluffy now that Nico and Will are sorta/kinda/almost together. They confessed their love! True love conquers all! Everything is good and beautiful and sunshiny!!!  
> Unfortunately (for you and for me, as well), life doesn't really work that way. Getting a boyfriend/girlfriend/significant other isn't a miracle cure for depression or anxiety, no matter how perfect/Will Solacey they are. Dealing with mental illness isn't neat or glamorous or easy. If you're struggling with something, please take the time to take care of yourself, since your first responsibility is always to you. Talk to a doctor or a parent or somebody in your life you look up to and trust. Or, if you want, click [here](http://theroyalsavage.tumblr.com/ask) and talk to me.  
> (Sorry for the rant. As always, thanks for the comments and kudos - you guys are beautiful.)


	15. Requiem

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Hades di Angelo sucks a whoooole bunch.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Know this: the ones that love us never really leave us."  
> -Sirius Black, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

req·ui·em

ˈrekwēəm/ 

_noun_

An act or token of remembrance.

 

The next morning found Nico awake too early, dressed in old jeans that fit slightly wrong and an Iron Man t-shirt from high school, which he found at the bottom of one of his drawers. Hazel met him in the hallway, her lips pressed into a thin line and her cloud of corkscrew curls pulled into a thick ponytail, held in place with an arsenal of pins.

“Ready to go?” she asked. Her smile looked strained.

“As I’ll ever be,” he answered.

Seph had agreed to lend them her car for the day, and Hazel had agreed to drive. Nico hated cars, the way the wheel got sweaty under his fingers and the violent, too-eager way the pedals responded to his feet, especially in fancy, unnecessarily gaudy vehicles like the ones his family owned.

 Hazel drove with that artificial smile still pinned in place, but before long, she reached over to hold Nico’s hand across the console. Her fingers, several shades darker than his, trembled a little.

_We’re okay_ , he wanted to promise her, but that tasted like a lie.

Their destination was tucked into the woods, about twenty minutes from the di Angelo household. Nico was of the opinion that places like this didn’t change – they weren’t bound by the same laws other places were, not controlled by time ticking forward. This hypothesis was upheld when it came into sight, and Nico was struck with déjà vu so hard he physically recoiled.

It was just like the last time he’d been here, what felt like a thousand years ago.

The susurration of their car’s tires on gravel was the only sound as they pulled into the tiny parking area, pressed up against the graveyard.

The flat green fields sprawled, graceless, broken only by the neat slivers of stone arranged in carefully controlled rows. The vibrant green of the grass was somehow accentuated by the ever-present silence, which cradled the cove like palms cup water.

The air felt heavy here.

Funny, almost. Poetic. For a graveyard to sit here, quietly, untouched, serving only as a reminder to those who wouldn’t forget anyway. And meanwhile Nico grew, Nico changed, Nico _became_ something.

“Neeks?” Hazel asked, quietly. Her hand closed on his shoulder, her thumb moving in soothing circles. “We don’t have to do this, you know.”

“We do,” he said, and then he set off walking. He knew the way, after all, too well, like reciting the alphabet or counting to ten.

One among hundreds, Bianca di Angelo’s headstone was nothing special. It was the same unassuming slate gray as the ones standing around it like sentries, engraved with her name and her birth and the day she lost her life, the day she left him.

Hazel sighed. “We should plant some flowers, don’t you think? It’s looking a little drab.”

Nico nodded. “Next spring. If we remind her, Seph can buy some plants. Maybe she can ask one of her friends to help her.”

“What about Dad?”

Nico snorted. “Please. I’m pretty sure the last time he was here was for Bianca’s funeral.”

“It’s hard for him—”

“It’s hard for all of us,” he snapped. “But _we_ make the effort.”

Hazel hesitated, then said, “She loved you both so much. If she was alive, she wouldn’t want you to spend your whole life fighting with him—”

“Well, she’s not alive,” Nico growled. “So we don’t know what she would or wouldn’t want.”

She looked tired. “Not this, Neeks.”

_No_ , his mind whispered. _Not this._

 

They ate Thanksgiving dinner in the same formal dining room they’d used last night. Hades arrived about twenty minutes before the turkey was finished, offering half-formed apologies, his suit unwrinkled and his neatly-parted, midnight-dark hair unruffled, despite what he claimed was a “horrendous” plane ride.

Hazel got up and ran to him when he walked in the door, and he pulled her into an awkward, one-armed hug, his gaze fixed on something stationary above her head.

Nico stood, as well, but didn’t move – his feet felt heavy, like they’d been infused with lead – and the two men stared at each other for what seemed like hours.

“Interesting haircut,” Hades finally commented.

Nico inwardly high-fived himself. “Thanks.”

“I’m expecting you to come home next time with tongue piercings and a parole officer.”

“Nice to see you, too, Dad.”

Something akin to a smile crossed his father’s mouth, and he crossed the room to sink down in a chair heavily. Nico and Hazel sat down as well; Hazel shot Nico a narrow, reproachful look out of the corner of her eye, and he fought the urge to stick his tongue out at her.

Hades was still staring at him with those unnerving, too-still, too-gray eyes. “Your flight all right?”

Nico shrugged. “Sure. Nothing unusual.”

“And how’s that roommate of yours? Valdez? Has he managed to blow anything up yet?”

“Only a blender and a couple cat dishes. We’ve been lucky this year.”

“Cat dishes?” Hazel repeated.

“It’s a long story. He was trying to make them into flying saucers using some wires and this video game controller he found on the side of the road—”

The conversation stayed mundane, uninteresting, and Nico made his escape a couple minutes later to help Seph with the food.

_Okay, okay_ , he reminded himself.

_This is okay._

That, too, tasted like a lie.

 

That night, in bed, Nico dreamed of a smaller table in a smaller dining room. There were no candles, because as a toddler Hazel liked to reach for bright lights, and instead the room was lit from overhead. The air was yellowy and leaden with the savory, salted smells of stuffing, gravy, butter on hot rolls.

Nico sat on Hades’ lap, his hands sticky and his mouth smeared crimson with cranberry sauce. Above him, his father laughed and reached over to brush Seph’s overlong bangs out of her face, back when she wore her hair short and straight.

Across the table, Hazel and a girl with Nico’s eyes and a smile like starlight argued enthusiastically about the best Disney princess. Hazel spun on Nico and crowed, “Neeks likes Belle best, doesn’t he?”

Nico had made a face and said, “Princesses are _lame_. I like Ursula!”

“You can’t like the _villain_ , Nico!”

Bianca’s laugh was golden, like the light, like Will Solace.

Nico blinked, and the dream changed.

He stood beside a hospital bed. Bianca looked porcelain, too pale, carved from stone and frosted glass. She was smaller in death, somehow, her shoulders folded in on themselves like a paper doll. Around her bedside, nurses unhooked various machines, pressed her eyes closed with deft fingers, called for a stretcher to take her to the morgue.

Morgue. Nico didn’t know that word. He hated it, though. He hated everything, every inch of this place, every inch of his body, which was too slow, too stupid to save her.

But then his father appeared in the doorway, and suddenly everything was okay, because Hades knew everything. Hades could fix this, Hades could tell those stupid nurses with their stupid smell of antiseptic and their stupid, pitying eyes to bring his sister back.

“What the _hell_ happened, Nico? How could you let them play in the road?”

An excellent question.

Wasn’t he supposed to be the responsible one? How could he have let this happen?

( _All my fault_ , he’d realized, all those years ago, and since then his skin had fit him wrong.)

It was funny, Nico thought. If he’d known that before he left the house would be the last time he saw his father smile, he probably would’ve tried to memorize _that_. Instead, he was stuck with _this_ , these scenes, over and over and over again.

_Remember, remember, remember how you failed her._

He didn’t think he’d ever be able to _stop_ remembering.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Surprise!!! Short exposition chapter the day after an update because (insert drumroll here) I'm on break!! (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:・ﾟ✧ . I'm probably going to try and update a couple times this week.  
> Thanks as always for the feedback!!


	16. Paradise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the dorks go on a dorky date. (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:・ﾟ✧

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "And I'm thinking 'bout how people fall in love in mysterious ways  
> Maybe just the touch of a hand,  
> Well, me, I fall in love with you every single day  
> And I just wanna tell you I am.  
> ...  
> Kiss me under the light of a thousand stars  
> Place your head on my beating heart  
> I'm thinking out loud  
> That maybe we found love right where we are."  
> -Ed Sheeran (Thinking Out Loud)
> 
> Hello hello! Another gentle reminder that this fic isn't rated M for nothin'. If you don't feel comfortable with sexy stuff, just kinda skip past the end bit. Probably from "I think Austin has a class" onward.  
> (Yeah, like *that* doesn't give anything away.)

par·a·dise

ˈperəˌdīs/

_noun_

1\. (In some religions) heaven as the ultimate abode of the just.

2\. The abode of Adam and Eve before the Fall in the biblical account of the Creation; the Garden of Eden.

3\. An ideal or idyllic place or state.

 

Compared to dancing around his dad all day, the end of the weekend and the return to the East Coast seemed to Nico like an enormous reprieve. Back at school, things were normal, uninteresting. There was the normal panicked homework rush, the normal grocery-shopping excursion with Leo (which somehow always seemed to end in them forgoing vegetables for Leo’s Lucky Charms or Gushers or Goldfish crackers), the normal debriefing with Jason and Piper about how his family was.

The normal desperate scramble to fix the things Leo broke in his absence.

Will’s flight landed several hours after Nico’s did. When he arrived, Nico was holding the front door up while Leo screwed the hinges back into place with a power tool, a couple nails sticking out of his mouth, his face screwed up in concentration.

Will was wearing Olympus University sweatpants and neon sneakers, his backpack slung over one shoulder, his hair tied up into a stubby ponytail at the base of his neck, the front falling out in a messy fringe.

“Hey, guys,” he said. “Need help?”

Leo spat the nails out of his mouth. “Nah. Nico’s got it covered.”

“Thanks for asking _me_ ,” Nico grumbled, adjusting his grip on the door.

Will stepped closer to Nico, leaning over the shorter boy’s shoulder to inspect the damage. “What… happened?”

“I was trying to make it automatic.” Leo shrugged and leaned back on his heels to take another look at the door. “Something went wrong with the button mechanism—”

Will lifted his hands in a gesture of surrender and smiled sheepishly. “I really don’t know anything about this stuff. Your explanation would be lost on me.”

Leo went back to working on the hinges. Will stared at him for another long second before looking up and meeting Nico’s eyes.

Nico was probably blushing, but he forced himself to keep a neutral expression and look Will in the eyes. “Your weekend all right?”

“Sure.” Will shrugged. “I missed you, though.”

Okay, yeah, he was _definitely_ blushing now.

“Don’t get all mushy on me now, Solace. I thought we left the Taylor Swift days behind us.”

Will laughed and shook his head, and Nico hadn’t realized how much he could miss the sound another person’s happiness.

Below them, Leo was fighting a smile, but he didn’t look up from his work.

 

Olympus University gave students the Monday after Thanksgiving off, as well, to give kids time to get back. Nico had planned on sleeping all day, _maybe_ leaving the bed for food or water, but his phone rang loudly at his bedside at about eight-thirty.

He fumbled for it blindly and answered in a sleep-induced haze: “What.”

“Good _morning_ , sunshine!”

Nico groaned. “What do you want, Solace?”

“Oh, were you still asleep? That’s a shame. Good thing you’re awake now, though!”

“I’m going to fucking—”

“Now, now, no need for bad language. Will you do me a favor?”

“Unless that favor involves going right the fuck back to sleep, no.”

“Aw, come on. Please?”

“No.”

“Please?”

“Fuck off.”

“Nico…”

“I’m hanging up now.”

“I’m just going to keep calling back. Also, I will have Austin turn my music on.”

Nico groaned into the pillow again and rolled out of bed, holding the phone between his shoulder and his ear while he rummaged through his drawers for pants.

“Do I hear movement?”

“Fuck you, Solace.”

“Oh-ho. Is that an offer?”

Nico dropped the phone.

 

Outside his bedroom, Nico could hear faint snoring through the wall of Leo’s bedroom. He crossed to the refrigerator and grabbed the orange juice. “Okay, I’m up,” he growled into the phone. “What now?”

“Look on the table.”

He did.

“Is that a _picnic basket_?”

“Sure is.”

Nico blinked at it. “No. No way. No way in hell, Solace.”

“Come _on_. I already walked all the way out here. And, anyway, some sunlight and fresh air will be good for you. And I bought those pastry things from that bakery in town you’re obsessed with.”

“We’re not having a – wait, hang on. You mean the Italian one?”

He could practically _see_ Will beaming at him. “That’s the one!” he said proudly. “They’re in the basket, so technically you _could_ just eat them there and leave me sitting out here alone, but that would be mean and I would probably cry.”

“Why did you leave me the basket, then?”

“So I could prove I actually bought the good stuff, and that I wasn’t just making it up to get you here! Also, because I wanted to go for a run and stop here on the way back, and running with a picnic basket is a little inconvenient.”

“Don’t you have anything better to do with your life than torment me, Solace?”

“Nope!”

Will laughed. It sounded strange over the phone, canned and electronic, and Nico was seized with the sudden, violent desire to see him in person and hear it for real.

“All right,” he conceded. “Where the hell are you, anyway?”

“ _Yes_!”

 

It didn’t take Nico long to puzzle out where Will was leading him. The clearing with the swing set looked different in broad daylight, less dilapidated and more quiet knowledgeable, like the ground knew secrets Nico didn’t. It was brilliantly sunny, just enough autumn warmth clinging to the air to keep it from being uncomfortable.

Will was sitting on a cheesy, red-checkered blanket in the center of the clearing, near the swings, his back to Nico. He was wearing a thin sweatshirt and shorts with the same aggressively colored sneakers as yesterday, his legs stretched out in front of him, leaning his weight on his hands. Nico adjusted the sleeve of his leather jacket.

His skin felt itchy, something strange bubbling up in his stomach. It took him a second to understand that he was nervous.

Why? Why, after all this time, could Will Solace still make Nico feel like he was jumping off a ledge into water, his body full of the swooping sensation of the ground falling out from under him?

“You’re late,” Will announced, without turning around.

“You’re too damn early, is what the problem is,” Nico growled, wading through the grass to drop down next to Will, placing the picnic basket down carefully. It was warmer in the sunlight than he’d expected, so he shrugged his jacket off and threw it next to them.

“Things are nicer in the morning. The world feels different.”

Will’s face was tilted up towards the sky. His eyes looked bluer in the morning sunlight, his skin almost golden, his hair alight with a yellow glow akin to flame. Maybe it was because he wasn’t fully awake. Maybe he was letting go of his inhibitions. Maybe he’d just missed Will more than he realized. Regardless of the reason, Nico let himself look, let his eyes trace the freckles he’d spent so much time forcing himself to tear his gaze away from. He’d never done this before, never let himself stare at Will’s eyelashes, sandy against his cheeks when he blinked. Never let himself stare at Will’s lips, full and pink and twisted upwards.

He had a dimple next to one side of his mouth, which made his grin look crooked, lopsided.

“Did you eat any of the food yet?” Will asked, his eyes still trained on the sky.

Nico scowled. “No. What do you take me for?”

Will raised an eyebrow.

“Fine. I had one of the pastries. _You_ were the one who made me get out of bed, asshole.”

“I did a lot of thinking this weekend,” Will said.

Nico’s throat closed.

“Oh.”

“I’ve spent a lot of my life,” he continued, still staring at the clouds like he was hoping to find answers there, “losing my grasp on the things I wanted. We never had a lot of money, and that was part of the problem, but I also… I’ve been _in between_ my whole life. Not tall, not short. Not super smart, but not struggling with my grades, either. Not straight and not gay. I always felt like I was _missing_ something, like there were pieces of me that didn’t fit right.”

_Nico was just…_ different _, operating on an incorrect frequency. An AM broadcast on an FM radio. That’s all there was to it._

“I take a lot of dumb risks, and I make a lot of stupid choices. I know that.” He shook his head, his jaw tightening. “I’m probably doing that right now, in fact. But I don’t want to be stuck in between anymore.”

Will looked down, turning himself so that he faced Nico, his eyebrows furrowed, his eyes blazing. “I’m in love with you, Nico.”

There were probably words for what Nico was feeling.

He couldn’t seem to find them, though.

“You don’t have to say it back. I know it’s fast. But I wanted—”

Nico reached out and grabbed Will around the neck, pulling him down. Their mouths came together with a hitching of breath, lips parting. Nico could feel Will’s surprise; his shoulders relaxed under Nico’s hand when their tongues brushed together, his fingers coming up to knit in Nico’s hair.

Nico pulled away, tracing his lips across Will’s cheekbone. “You’re an idiot, Solace,” he observed.

“I know,” Will agreed, his voice a little broken, turning his head to capture Nico’s mouth again.

“A huge fuckin’ idiot,” Nico whispered against Will’s lips.

“I know.”

“I’ve been in love with you for months.”

Will drew away from his mouth, his breathing heavier than normal, keeping their foreheads pressed together.

“You… What? You have?”

Nico frowned. “Ever since you broke my stupid nose with that stupid goddamn door.”

What was that noise? Was Will _crying_?

Nico shot backwards, eyebrows furrowed, trying to assess the damage, but Will wasn’t crying; he was laughing, his shoulders shaking, his hand pressed against his mouth to muffle the sounds.

“Do you know,” he choked, “how nervous I was to tell you?”

“Sure. Because you’re an idiot,” Nico sniffed.

Will snorted and then he reached over and yanked Nico down on top of him, arms closing around Nico’s middle, Nico’s face buried in his shoulder.

“You’re smothering me,” Nico protested, trying to push himself up. Will’s grip tightened.

He was stronger than he looked.

“I love you,” Will giggled. “I love you, I love you.”

“You’re ridiculous.”

“Ridiculously _in love_ with you…”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake, Solace—”

They lay like that for awhile, though Nico finally managed to detangle himself from Will’s limbs and roll over onto his back.

“You’re a huge dork,” Nico observed.

Will beamed at him. “Yup. But you knew that getting into this.”

“True. I’m still questioning my sanity.”

The cloud above them looked like a statue, the elegant, marble kind you could find inside Greek temples. Nico could pick out the slope of its shoulders, the draping of an elegant toga.

Will poked his arm. “What’s that say? It’s in Italian, right?”

Nico glanced down at the tattoo Will was pointing at. “Yeah. It’s from a poet. Antonio Porchia. ‘One lives in the hope of becoming a memory.’”

“That’s sad,” Will said.

“A little,” Nico conceded. “But it’s also true.”

It was the first tattoo Nico had gotten, actually. Bianca had loved poetry a lot, and she’d had a handwritten version of that quote tacked up on her desk in her bedroom.

He’d been inked on her birthday, Hazel sitting to the side and watching with wide eyes, whispering about how angry Hades was going to be.

Will’s fingers traced up to the crook of Nico’s arm, more the whisper, the suggestion of a touch than a real one. “I think I recognize that one. Is that poetry, too?”

“Not really. ‘ _Les vrais paradis sont les paradis qu’on a perdus_ _._ ’Marcel Proust. ‘The only paradise is paradise lost.’”

“Like the novel? _Paradise Lost_?”

Nico smiled a little. “Sort of, yeah.”

“Do you speak French, too?”

“A little. That’s the language I studied in high school, so I’ve got the basics down. Well, I studied that and Latin, but I don’t really speak Latin around town.”

Will made a little, muffled expression of awe. “I took three years of Spanish, but I’m lousy at it. Does that make you _tri_ lingual? Oh, wait, that’s four, isn’t it? You speak Italian, too, right?”

“ _Sì. Ma io non parlo bene francese_.”

“Okay, see, now you’re just showing off.”

Nico’s smile widened. Will’s fingers traced a pattern of interlocking circles and triangles, delicately drawn, curving like chains across his forearm. “What’s that one?”

“I just thought it looked cool.”

An intricate skull.

“I was a huge loser when I was eighteen.”

A pair of doves taking off.

“A new beginning. That was when I started college.”

‘Name one hero who was happy.’

“ _The Song of Achilles._ Because I’m a history geek and a literature geek and a sucker for good foreshadowing.”

Will pressed his lips to the soft skin on the inside of Nico’s forearm. “How do you remember all of these?”

Nico shrugged. Will’s lips were moving upward, and it was making it very difficult to concentrate. “Good memory, I guess.”

 

It was hard to tell when the affection blossoming in Nico’s chest morphed into something else. Maybe while they were eating. Maybe when they walked home, fingers intertwined, shoulders brushing, Will bouncing a little and tossing enormous, luminous smiles at Nico like ammunition. Maybe when they got to the door of Nico’s apartment and Will said, shyly, “You could come upstairs instead. If you wanted,” and then added, like an afterthought, blushing fiercely, “I think Austin has a class.”

Will’s place was messy, books and clothes and what looked like a stethoscope scattered over the furniture and the floors. His bedroom was just as bad.

“Sorry about the mess,” he said, shifting from foot to foot, his gaze fixed steadily on a point above Nico’s head. “You’d think, as a medical student, I’d be better at keeping my stuff neat—”

“I don’t mind,” Nico assured him.

“And sorry I kidnapped you and made you get out of bed.”

“I don’t mind.”

“And sorry I—”

“Solace,” Nico growled, “are you going to kiss me, or not?”

Will’s ears turned crimson. Nico closed the space between them and tugged Will down onto the bed.

When their lips met this time, it was different. Less of a coming-together and more of a collision, an implosion. The kiss was hungry and openmouthed and sloppy, Will’s hands tracing down Nico’s chest and slipping under the hem of his t-shirt, splaying across his stomach. Their limbs intertwined, Will a warm weight across the length of Nico’s body, the smell of him – sandalwood and spice and something warm and uniquely _Will_ – coating Nico’s senses. There was nothing, nothing in the world, nothing except this, the feeling of their mouths sliding together, the sounds Will made, deep in his throat, when Nico’s tongue explored his mouth or Nico caught his lower lip between his teeth.

Will’s lips strayed from Nico’s mouth, burning trails down his temple, his throat, his chest. His body felt drawn out, inflamed, Will’s hands tracing the lines of his stomach, moving down to hitch his thumbs in the waistband of Nico’s jeans.

Nico’s breath hitched. Will said, “Is this okay?”

Will’s thumbs drew new tattoos onto Nico’s skin.

_Okay. Okay._

_More than okay_.

And then his shirt was up and over his head, and Will’s eyes travelled down the lines of Nico’s torso, traced their way along Nico’s ribs.

Nico’s face felt hot. “What? Are you just gonna sit there and stare all day?” he growled.

Will’s ears were turning pink again. “You’re so beautiful, Nico,” he whispered, and his voice was soft, reverent, _enraptured_. And then he was moving, pressing a trail of heated, burning kisses down Nico’s stomach, his tongue tracing slow, deliberate circles across the skin and he moved lower and lower, to Nico’s hipbones, to the soft, downy line of hair at the lowest part of his abdomen.

Nico’s body felt too hot, and he was probably hard already, but he couldn’t bring himself to care.

Will’s fingers brushed up his legs, tracing circles on the insides of his thighs. When they brushed his crotch, his hips bucked up a little and he couldn’t stop a small, quiet moan from escaping his lips.

“Jesus, Nico, you’re so hot,” Will gasped, and then he was fumbling at Nico’s waistband, unzipping his jeans and yanking them aside like they’d wronged him personally. There was a different sort of fire in his face than usual, and Nico giggled a little at the intensity of his expression before one of his hands slipped inside Nico’s boxers and the laugh became a broken groan.

“Fuck,” he muttered.

Will pressed a kiss to his thigh. “Okay?” he asked.

“Okay,” Nico affirmed, his breath stuttering when Will’s hand closed around his length.

Nico could feel every nerve ending in his body acutely. Every callous on Will’s fingers, every line in his skin and scar on his hand. It was like disintegrating, like dying, only everything was crimson and full of Will, of the smell of him, of the feeling of his lips on Nico’s chest and his leg on Nico’s leg and his hand on Nico’s—

“Fucking _hell_.” Nico bit down on the inside of his cheek and arched his body upward, into Will’s hand. “Ah – ah, _Will_ —”

“It’s okay, love.”

It wasn’t okay. It was so, so far from _okay_. It was glorious, sunlit. Nico felt like every cell in his body was combusting, turning to dust, and _God_ , he’d never cared less.

It built inside his lungs, inside his body, inside the pit of his stomach, until the tide inside his stomach pushed and tipped and pulled him over the edge. He was crumbling, collapsing, coming undone. When he came, he whispered Will’s name, over and over again, like a prayer, like a promise, like a miracle.

He felt odd, open, like Will had torn something inside him, ripped it away and left a chasm in its place. It wasn’t a bad feeling.

He was supposed to reciprocate now, wasn’t he? Stupid, stupid. He wasn’t sure. He’d never done anything like this before.

Then Will giggled a little. “I guess now I know how to get you to call me Will instead of Solace.”

“Screw off, Solace.”

“Hmm. I like Will better.”

Nico hesitated, and then managed to mutter, “I don’t know… quite how to…”

Will smiled at him gently. “Don’t worry. This was your first time doing something like this, right?” Nico scowled and looked away, down at his feet, but nodded. “It’s okay if you’re not ready. I’ll show you next time. All right?”

“All right,” he whispered.

“I’m going to go clean up. Grab a shirt or something to change into if you want. There are boxers in the bottom drawer, too, we should probably wash those.”

He was getting up, moving away, searching for something to mop up the mess in his bed, and Nico blurted, “Will,” before he realized the word was sitting on his tongue.

Will’s shoulders stiffened and he whipped around, eyes wide, cheeks pink.

“I…” Nico gritted his teeth, and then mumbled, “I love you, you know.”

The surprise on Will’s face became an enormous smile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Shows up 10 years late with this and Starbucks*


	17. Grief

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Nico reflects on the things he has lost.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Perhaps it is the greater grief, after all, to be left on earth when another is gone.”  
> -Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
> 
> Holy mature themes, Batman!  
> PLEASE NOTE: I took a little creative license with the dates in this chapter, so please pretty please forgive me for any inaccuracies.

grief

ɡrēf/

_noun_

Deep sorrow, especially that caused by someone's death.

 

November faded like the colors the landscape used to contain.

Everything seemed cheap, flimsy, ephemeral. The world tasted gray, dry and dusty on his tongue. Not-quite-autumn met not-quite-winter, and it sat heavy on Nico’s shoulders. Boiled heavy in Nico’s blood.

It happened every year, around this time; his body felt like it weighed a million pounds, and he couldn’t seem to rationalize the world around him. What was the point in doing all this homework? Studying for midterms? Getting out of bed?

 _One lives in the hope of becoming a memory_.

That was all Nico was: memories. He was made of them.

December, for example, was ashen snow and the stink of hospital; muddy shoes stained with grave soil; the copper-thick taste of blood on his tongue.

Days ticked by.

 

FROM: Solace, 1:34 PM

u want to go out tonight? theres this great band playing at a cafe downtown. ud love them, they wear too much black and sing about death

 

TO: Solace, 1:45 PM

I’ve got a lot of homework. Sorry.

 

 

FROM: Piper, 4:46 PM

I’m worried, Nico. pulling away doesn’t help. you know it only makes things worse.

 

TO: Piper, 4:50 PM

I don’t need your input, thanks. I’m an adult.

 

FROM: Piper, 4:52 PM

I /know/ you’re an adult, but that doesn’t mean I’m not worried. pushing the world aside isn’t going to make you feel better. you need to talk to somebody. it doesn’t have to be about Bianca.

FROM: Piper, 5:15 PM

Please don’t ignore me, Nico. I can see that you read the text.

FROM: Piper, 5:34 PM

At least tell Will why you need some alone time. I saw him in the library today, and it sounded like he’s worried about you.

 

Around and around and around he went. Always the same. Always identical.

One. Two. Three. Four.

(He saw Will in the dining hall at dinnertime on December fourth. The taller boy smiled and waved, trying to weave through the crowd to intercept him, but Nico shrank into the shadows and let the tide of people drag him away, and then he was gone, and Will was left standing alone.)

Five.

 

In his dream, he was thirteen, and there were Christmas decorations on the lawn.

They were playing soccer, using the neighbor’s nasty, plastic, blow-up Santa Claus as one goal and the underneath of the di Angelo’s Mercedes as the other. It was chilly, the kind of in-between weather that Washington was famous for. Too warm, certainly, for the thick sweatshirt he was wearing, but too cold for Percy Jackson’s t-shirt and shorts.

Nico had heard the sky during a rainstorm described as flat, steely gray, but he thought that was wrong. There were flaws, ripples, like enormous fingers had been dragged across the sky, leaving trails of faded colors behind. He remembered being cold, goose bumps rippling up the skin of his arms. He remembered looking too long at Percy, at the way his damp shirt clung to his sides. He remembered Bianca singing a song in Italian, loudly and off-key, as she ran, mud splattered up her legs and in her hair.

“What do you want for Christmas?” Percy asked Nico while they ran, his smile wide and honest.

Lightning forked through Nico’s chest and he blushed fiercely, muttering something generic while his mind chanted _you, you, you, I want_ you _,_ like an anthem.

“Well, I want it to rain so much the whole _world_ becomes water!” Percy exclaimed. “And then I can swim all the time!”

“You can swim whenever you want _now_ ,” Nico pointed out. “Just go to a pool instead of the ocean.”

Percy pouted. “I like the ocean better, though.”

Nico tried not to stare at his lips.

Bianca zoomed past them, dribbling the soccer ball with practiced ease. “Better pay attention,” she lilted, her voice choked with laughter. Percy and Nico looked at each other in a panic and sprinted forward, but the damage was done: Bianca was past them, headed straight for the inflatable Santa, and for a huge patch of mud.

Wasn’t that the worst part? All the little things Nico could remember. How pointless the conversation with Percy had been. How stupid he was for getting distracted. How if they had stopped her from sprinting into the mud, she would still be alive.

Stupid, stupid, the way the world worked. Cyclical and painful and God, _God_ , it made no sense to him.

Bianca slipped in the mud and lost control of the soccer ball; it bounced into the street, rolling to a stop on the other side of the road.

“I’ll get it,” Percy offered with a shrug, and Nico felt like vomiting, because he knew what came next, of course he knew, but he didn’t think he could watch it. Not again.

Not again.

_Please, God, not again._

The world kept turning as Percy ran out onto the street, scrubbing a hand through his rain-wet hair, so that it stood on end. Nico stood still. The car came screaming down the street. Bianca sprinted forward. She shoved Percy out of the way.

And then.

Her body _flew_ when the car hit it. There was a sound like the world ending, and somebody screamed – maybe it was Nico, he never really knew – and then there was nothing, nothing, nothing except the smell of her blood and rain on his face and Percy’s hands on his shoulders, holding him back as he tried to go to her, to his sister.

The world kept turning, yes, but, to Nico, that was the moment it ended.

He wanted to tear the memories out of himself, pull every image of her away and grind it into the dust with his heel. His stupid, funny, intelligent, kind sister. Every image of her smile, of the way she hugged him when he told her he was gay, of her wink when she gave him pointers on how to get Percy to notice him. How she hadn’t even blinked when he asked her how boys had sex. How she’d grabbed his chin fiercely and growled, “There is no shame in loving. Do you hear me, Nicky? Don’t you ever be ashamed of loving somebody.”

She was Nico’s sister, but she was a million other things, as well. She was going through an anime phase and kept trying to get him to watch Bleach with her. Her favorite superhero was Captain America. She liked scary movies, but only when there was somebody there to hold her hand. She wanted to be a doctor. She was taking archery lessons.

Her eyes were open, and glassy, and she would never smile at him again. He would die without hearing her laugh until she cried, without her lame puns and not-funny jokes that never failed to make him spit out his drink.

That was his punishment, his curse.

Doomed to miss her.

 _Nico_.

There was poetry in that, he thought.

 _Nico, please_.

A violent kind of metaphor.

_Nico!_

A violent kind of love.

(He didn’t think there was any other kind. If there was, he didn’t know what it was.)

“Nico.”

His eyes opened. It was snowing outside the window of his bedroom, the light in his bedroom a pale shade of _nothing_. Will sat on the edge of his bed, his hands on Nico’s shoulders.

In Nico’s groggy, half-awake fog, it seemed to him that Will was the only color in the entire world. His hair and his eyes and his lips.

Nico couldn’t look at him.

“How did you get in here?” he managed. His tongue felt like cotton.

“You left the door unlocked.” Will’s voice was laced with concern – practically _dripped_ with it. He had his ‘doctor’s face’ on, the kind Nico thought he would probably look at patients with. Analyze the problem. Find a solution. Clinical. Medical.

Nico wondered if there was a pill that could keep him from tearing to pieces.

“Okay. I left the door unlocked. _Why_ are you here?”

“Piper texted me,” Will answered. He leaned back on the end of the bed and hugged his legs to his chest, resting his chin on his knees. “Leo’s out with Jason and she said you might… need somebody.”

“I don’t,” Nico growled. When Will drew back a little, eyes wide and a little wounded, he sighed and said, “I mean… that’s not… Fuck. Sorry.”

Will nodded. “Nico,” he said, very seriously.

“Yeah.”

“Who’s Bianca?”

Nico’s jaw gritted down.

“You were saying her name in your sleep,” Will continued gently. “And crying. Is she—?”

Is she?

Is she?

 _Was_ she.

“It doesn’t matter,” Nico ground out. “It was just a nightmare.”

“It wasn’t.” Will’s eyebrows furrowed and he looked away, at the snow accumulating on the windowsill. “This week, you’ve been avoiding me.”

“I’ve been busy.”

“Stop lying.” His hands clenched into fists, his knuckles white under his skin. “If you don’t want to talk to me, tell me. If you want me to leave, tell me—”

God. Nico kept doing this, kept fucking things up. A prodigy of breaking the things he loved, letting them shatter at the ground in front of his feet.

“I don’t. I don’t want you to leave.” He sat up and mimicked Will’s position, his legs tucked up to his chin. “I’m sorry,” he repeated, softly. “I just don’t… I don’t know how the fuck to talk about this. I don't know.”

“You don’t have to,” Will said. “You don't need to force yourself. I just want to know that you’re okay.”

 _I’m fine_. That’s what Nico wanted to say. That’s what he should’ve said, what he _always_ said.

Instead, he breathed, “I’m not. Not okay. I don’t even remember what okay feels like, Will, and it scares me, it scares me so much, because nothing matters anymore and I don’t want to hurt you—”

Will moved without Nico realizing. His arms closed around Nico’s shoulders, pulling him against Will’s chest. Nico could feel Will’s face pressing against the crown of his head, his fingers playing with the short, buzzed hair at the base of his neck.

The tears came before he understood what was happening, thick and painful in his chest, and they stayed like that while he cried, limbs tangled, Nico’s face buried in Will’s shoulder, cloaked with the smell of him.

“You don’t need to worry about me,” Will whispered.

“I’m so fucked up,” Nico gasped. “I’m so fucked up and you deserve better—”

“No, I don’t,” Will snarled, his grip around Nico’s shoulders tightening. “I don’t deserve better, I don’t _want_ better, I want _you_. Do you understand me, di Angelo? I’m not leaving you. I’m not.”

She’d said that, too. She’d smiled and promised they’d be together forever, and now she was nothing but memories and fading pictures in his stepmother’s wallet.

“My sister,” he murmured against the crook of Will’s neck. “Bianca was my sister.”

 “…Was,” Will repeated, very quietly.

“She died.” Nico’s voice sounded wrong, too tight, stretched thin. “She was just a kid. We were _kids_ , and she got hit by a car, and I watched her die, Will. She bled out on the street right in front of me.” He finished his thought in Italian, because English tasted wrong on his tongue: “ _She was my sister, and I let her die, and I haven’t been okay since._ ”

Will whispered, “Oh, my God.”

“It was so long ago.” Nico shook his head. “Today’s the anniversary. Of the day she died. That’s why I’ve been acting insane. It’s always… this time of year, that is, I tend to…”

Will pulled away, and for a second Nico was sure – he was _positive_ – that Will was leaving, that he’d had enough and was going to avoid Nico’s eyes on the street, delete Nico’s number from his phone. But then he cupped Nico’s face in his hands and said, “I love you.”

Nico blinked. “What?”

“You heard me, sunshine. I love you. So if you’re thinking that I’m going to abandon you right now, you sure as hell better forget it. I’m going to stay right here, as long as you need me.”

He leaned forward and touched his forehead to Nico’s, his thumbs tracing slow circles on Nico’s cheekbones. The panic in Nico’s chest felt like it was shriveling, something soft and tiny and golden replacing it instead.

“I don’t know how to do this,” Nico whimpered. “I’m no good at it.” _I’m only good at losing things and never forgetting_.

“You don’t need to be good. You need to be _you_.”

Nico nodded tightly and rubbed angrily at the itchy heat in his eyes. Will smiled a soft, sad smile and brushed at the tears with his thumbs. Their faces were so close, too close, Will's breath on Nico's mouth, his eyes electric and the entirety of Nico's universe.

“Do you want to tell me about her?” Will asked.

Did he?

“People say she looked like me,” he said lowly. “And I guess she did. But, when you peel away all that superficial shit, I think she was more like you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm late again aahhhhhh.  
> I'm so sorry about that, I've had an INSANE week and never really got around to writing this. We're winding down now (I'm thinking two or three more chapters to resolve the main conflict, and maybe an epilogue??). I don't know how quickly I'll be able to churn them out, but I'll do my best to stick to a weekly schedule.  
> If you want to cry about Will Solace/discuss headcanons/complain about the SAT with me, my ask box on Tumblr is always open. (theroyalsavage.tumblr.com)


	18. Warm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Nico and Will wake up in a rather compromising position, Mama Jason makes an appearance, and everyone is a huge dork.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Give me love like her,  
> 'Cause lately I've been waking up alone,  
> Paint splattered teardrops on my shirt,  
> Told you I'd let them go.  
> ...  
> All I want is the taste that your lips allow,  
> My, my, my, my, oh, give me love."  
> -Ed Sheeran (Give Me Love)

warm

wôrm/

_adjective_

**1**. Of or at a fairly or comfortably high temperature.

2\. Having, showing, or expressive of enthusiasm, affection, or kindness.

 

Nico woke up warm.

That was the first miracle.

It took him an embarrassingly long time to figure out what was different, why the jagged streaks of electric blue memories he kept inside his chest seemed faded, chained, kept at bay. His mind processed the situation piece by piece: the arms, lean and smooth and freckled, wrapped tight around his waist, fingers knit into his own where they rested against his stomach. The hard, deliberate lines of a chest against his back, legs intertwined with Nico’s, no space between them, just heat. Breath, soft and steady against the bare skin at the base of his neck.

His eyes felt itchy, hot. He extracted his hand from Will’s grasp to rub angrily at his face.

He’d cried, hadn’t he? Just completely lost his cool.

And yet.

And yet?

Will sighed softly in his sleep, nuzzling closer into Nico’s shoulder. Why hadn’t he left?

_I love you. So if you’re thinking that I’m going to abandon you right now, you sure as hell better forget it. I’m going to stay right here, as long as you need me._

That was the second miracle, wasn’t it?

He wanted to turn around, bury his face in Will’s shirt, breathe in the smell of him. He wanted to trace the graceful lines of Will’s face with his fingertips, wanted to watch Will’s head tip back and his eyelids flutter, eyelashes sandy and light against the warm, freckled tan of his cheeks.

He forced himself to stay still, though, partially from fear of waking the sleeping boy behind him, and partially from fear of himself, of the heat coiling low in his stomach.

Outside the window, snow was falling again.

 

He must’ve drifted back to sleep, because when he opened his eyes again, he had turned over, his nose pressed against Will’s collarbone. Will’s arms were still tight around him, one slung around his shoulders and the other crooked under his head, Will’s hand buried in Nico’s hair.

This position was slightly more compromising than the one from earlier. Will’s knee was between Nico’s legs, and if he moved it up even the slightest bit, it would be rubbing into Nico’s groin.

“Fuck,” Nico mumbled.

“Good morning to you, too, sunshine.”

Nico gasped and shot backwards, pushing himself off Will’s chest and tumbling backwards, off the bed. He landed, splay-limbed and ungraceful, on the floor with a dull, loud _thump_ and groaned, “Oh, son of a _bitch_ ,” reaching back to rub the ache out of the back of his head. On the bed, Will was propped up on one elbow, looking down at him and giggling, his laughter muffled by his hand.

“Sorry,” he choked, “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“Fuck you, Solace,” Nico grumbled. “I think I heard something crack.”

“Really? Stand up; I’ll check you over. I’m a doctor, after all.”

“You’re not a doctor.”

“Doctor-in-training.”

“Still not a doctor.”

“Do you want me to look at you or not?”

“No.” Nico scowled. “I do not.”

Will stuck his lower lip out. “Don’t you trust me?”

Nico debated saying _no_ , but Will had adopted the wide-eyed, wounded puppy expression and what he heard himself saying instead was, “Fine.”

He lifted himself up and sat back down on the bed. Will beamed at him and scooted over on his butt. His bedhead really was spectacular, almost-curls flying in a hundred different directions. Nico wanted to reach up and pat it down, run his fingers through it, but then Will was guiding his chin upwards and inspecting his eyes, one by one.

“How’s your vision? Blurry?”

“No.”

Nico was acutely aware of Will’s fingers where they rested on his chin and on his knee.

“An excellent sign. What’s your name?”

“Nico di Angelo. I don’t see how this—”

“Okay. Eleven times two?”

“What is this, calculus? Twenty-two.”

“Nice. In 1492, who sailed the ocean blue?”

“Christopher Columbus. You’re such a nerd.”

“Don’t I know it.” Will released Nico’s chin and moved his hand so that he cupped his face instead, his thumb brushing along Nico’s cheekbone. “I don’t think you’re concussed, then. Anything else you’d like me to check out?” His smile took on a dangerous glint. Nico wasn’t sure whether to be terrified or aroused. “We could go through your whole body to make sure nothing’s broken. That would be the responsible thing to do.” His hand, braced on Nico’s knee, started to creep up his thigh.

Nico coughed violently and shot backwards again, his face flaming.

“Um,” he said eloquently.

Will blinked at him innocently. “Yes?”

It was becoming very difficult to maintain a frown with Will looking at him like that.

“Aw, don’t get embarrassed, love. This is for science.”

“I am going to smack you, Solace.”

“Science, I promise—”

Nico shoved him and Will grabbed his wrists, and, somehow, they ended up tangled together again, Will pressing gentle kisses to the side of Nico’s neck and whispering _science_ into his ear. Nico could feel him smiling, feel the vibration of Will’s laughter in his chest, warm and solid and _real_ , and yet it still didn’t make sense, didn’t compute in Nico’s brain.

He’d wanted to hold Will, and be held by him, for months. And now, here they were, and all he could think was that he must be doing this wrong, must be frowning too much, must be putting his hands in the wrong places.

“Ni _co_ , stop squirming, you might be concussed, remember, I should check you again—”

Laughter bubbled up inside Nico’s throat, and this time he either wouldn’t or couldn’t contain it. It spilled out of him, overflowing, the kind of laughter that shakes your shoulders and catches in your throat and makes your stomach ache. Nico rolled away from Will, doubled over, trying to catch hold of his breath and his dignity.

Bianca was gone. She was gone and it hurt – it hurt like _fuck_ , a knife between his ribs – but, for the first time in years, Nico didn’t feel like he was standing alone at the edge of a precipice, watching foaming waves chip away at the rocks below him.

It was _nice_. Nice to feel happy. Nice to feel loved.

When he was able to breathe normally again, a few final, stray snickers pressed behind his hand, he looked back up at Will, who was staring at him, eyes wide, lips parted slightly, his ears scarlet.

They looked at each other for several long seconds. Then Nico prompted, “What, Solace?”

“No!” Will jumped, the flush in his ears creeping into his cheeks. “Wait. I mean – um. Wait, hang on. I. Um. Nothing. You just… um…”

Nico raised an eyebrow.

“ _You’resocute_.”

Will’s face was just about scarlet now.

Nico said, deadpan, “You’ve called me cute before. Why do you look like your head is about to explode?”

“No, but like.” Will threw his arms into the air desperately. “Like. Your laugh. I don’t know. You’re so…” He buried his face in his hands. “ _Gah_.”

“Wow, thanks.”

Will whined, his voice muffled by his hands, “You’re so fricking adorable.”

Nico scowled. “Okay, hang on. ‘Cute’ is one thing. I can live with ‘cute,’ since you’re never going to stop talking like a sixth grader. I am not _adorable_.”

“You are, though. Your smile, and your laugh, and your eyes… Jesus.” Will lifted his head off his hands and offered a smile that was half-apology, half-amusement. “Adorable.”

“Solace. I have _tattoos_. I wear all black clothing. An old lady crossed to the other side of the street to avoid passing me the other day. I am _not adorable_.”

 “You’re _so_ cute, though, I don’t even know, just the cutest thing I’ve ever seen—”

Nico groaned and threw a pillow at the other boy, who collapsed backwards when it hit him, clutching at his chest and moaning theatrically, “I’ve been hit! I can’t go on. It looks like this is the end… Go on without me, Nico… tell my family I love them… except for Kayla, tell her to go screw herself, she stole my signed edition of the seventh Harry Potter book…”

Nico was muffling his laughter in a pillow, Will still rolling around and gasping, hand extended to the ceiling like a man reaching for the sun during his dying throes, when the bedroom door swung open.

Jason nodded at them over his bowl of cereal. “Hey, guys. Good sleepover?”

Nico fell off the bed for the second time in ten minutes.

When he reemerged, Will and Jason seemed to be caught in some sort of staring contest, the corner of Jason’s mouth twitching up, Will’s face completely scarlet again.

“We didn’t—” Nico and Will started together.

Jason took a bite of Cheerios. “I don’t want to know, boys. Actually, scratch that, I do want to know. Are you being safe? Do we need to have The Talk? Also, who made the first move? We took bets on that.”

Leo’s voice rang from out in the kitchen, irate: “You’re not supposed to _tell them_ that, Grace!”

Jason shrugged and pushed his glasses up his nose.

Nico blinked. “You took bets on who would try and get in the other’s pants first?”

“Well, when you put it like that, it sounds pretty bad.” Jason took another bite of cereal and said, around it, “I’m messing with you, Nico. We would never.”

Outside, Leo corrected, “ _He_ would never.”

Jason shot a glare at the open door before turning back to Nico and Will. “Frank’s making pancakes from the cheapest mix we could find, and we thought we might be able to commission Will’s Mario Kart for the Wii.”

Will nodded, shooting to his feet like Jason had electrocuted him. His ears were still suspiciously red. “Sure. I’ll go grab it. Nico, do you want to—?”

Nico shrugged and said, “I should probably shower. I’ll meet you out there.”

Will nodded again and straightened his orange t-shirt, raking his hands through his hair a couple times. He hesitated, then swept down and planted a kiss on Nico’s cheek before chirping, “I’ll be right back!” and hurrying out of the room.

As soon as he heard the front door close, Jason crossed his arms over his chest and lilted, “So. How long has _that_ been going on?”

“None of your business,” Nico growled, getting out of the bed and crossing to the closet to start pulling out clothes.

“He makes you happy.”

Nico froze and turned to look at Jason, whose grin had softened exponentially.

“He’s an idiot,” Nico grumbled, his voice barely above a whisper.

“You were smiling.”

 _I was smiling_.

How many years had it been since he’d smiled this close to December fifth?

“He makes it warmer,” Nico whispered. “Makes some of the… the _bad_ … go away.”

Jason clapped a hand to his heart. “You _love_ him.”

Nico groaned.

“No, listen to me, man. I’m really happy for you. Will’s a good guy.”

Wasn’t _that_ the understatement of the century?

“I don’t want to fuck this up,” Nico mumbled.

Jason beamed at him. “You won’t. That guy’s crazy about you, believe me.”

“Totally whipped,” Leo put in, from just outside the bedroom door, and there was a smack followed by a sharp yelp of, “ _Ow_ , Jesus, Piper—”

Nico inspected his hands, and said, “And you guys… don’t mind? That I’m, you know…?”

“A huge gaylord?” Leo popped his head around the doorframe, Buford the cat twining his way around his feet. “Nah.”

“Don’t call him a gaylord, Leo,” Piper said, in a warning tone, leaning around him. “And I’m glad he made you feel better, Nico,” she added, in a much softer voice, tucking her hair behind her ear.

She was the one who’d texted him yesterday, Nico remembered. The one who’d told him Nico would need somebody.

Affection blossomed in his chest. He offered her a small smile. “Thanks.”

And then Frank was in the doorway, too, and he and Jason both looked a little misty-eyed, so Nico leapt to his feet and shouted, “Shower!” before misty eyes could become waterworks, and he’d have to deal with a room full of crying morons.

 

Later, when Will had returned and they were all settled in with mugs of hot cocoa, Frank’s not-quite-burned chocolate chip pancakes, and Mario Kart, Nico called Hazel. Admittedly, it was probably too loud to be making a phone call, too much energy in the room, too many personalities bumping off one another until they filled the space and it was hard to breathe. He kind of felt like he had to, though.

(After all, she’d lost a sister, too.)

“I wasn’t sure whether you would call,” Hazel said, when she answered the phone.

“Neither was I,” Nico admitted, reaching up to knot his free hand in the longer hair at the top of his head.

“I talked to Seph yesterday. She’s worried about you, wants you to call.”

“I will. Later.”

There was a silence between them, then Hazel said gently, “Are you okay, Neeks?”

“I’m fine,” Nico said, automatically, and it wasn’t until the words passed through his lips that he realized it was true. “I’m okay,” he said, softer, and his sister sighed on the other end of the line.

“I wish I could be there with you. I think our break starts a couple days before yours, I could fly out in a week or two and—”

“Hazel, seriously. I really am okay.” He hesitated, then added, “Will… stayed with me.”

“Oh,” she said. And then, “ _Oh_. Are you guys…?”

Across the room, Princess Daisy, piloted by Leo, took the lead. He dropped a banana peel onto the course and shouted, “ _That’s right, suck my bananas, bitch_!”

Piper smacked him across the back of the head and reclaimed first place one-handed.

“What’s going on over there?” Hazel asked.

“Pandemonium,” Nico said, grimly.

 On the screen, Baby Peach overtook Mario. Jason groaned, “Goddamn it, William,” and Will _tsk_ ed. “ _Language,_ young man.”

“We can talk about Will another time,” Hazel continued, a hint of laughter in her voice. I’d like to Skype with him some more, get to know him.”

Nico shot Will a look, traced his eyes over the forward slope to Will’s shoulders and the furrow of concentration between his eyebrows and how he sucked on his lower lip during particularly tricky stretches.

“He’d probably like that,” Nico mumbled.

“And you can tell him from me that if he hurts you I’ll personally hop a flight to New York and kick his damn ass.”

Nico snorted. “I would hope so.”

She paused and then said, “You’ll be all right? I know it’s not easy.”

No. It wasn’t. Of course it wasn’t _easy_. Of course Nico still winced when the hot cocoa Piper handed him had cinnamon sprinkled on the top, the way Bianca used to drink it. Of course he still felt tired, so tired, the louder and louder the room became. Of course he still had to step into his bedroom once or twice when his chest started to ache and he was worried he might start crying again.

No, it wasn’t easy. But it was _easier_. He was on the phone with Hazel and Jason was heckling Will and Piper was winning and Leo was shouting, “Eat my cannon, losers!”

And, later, when he hung up and sat back down on the couch, Will shifted his body almost imperceptibly, so their thighs would brush every once in awhile or their shoulders would bump, and it was close enough, Nico thought.

Not easy, but close enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case anyone is interested, Piper's go-to character for Mario Kart is Bowser, Leo's is either Princess Daisy or Wario (depending on the day), and Nico's is King Boo. I wanted to work in a "ghost king" joke, but it wasn't really fitting with the chapter, so let's just pretend I did, hmm?


	19. Bittersweet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which metaphors are discussed and a wild Percy Jackson appears (it's super effective).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Death, be not proud, though some have called thee  
> Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;  
> For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow  
> Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me."  
> -John Donne (Holy Sonnet: Death, be not proud)

bit·ter·sweet

\ˈbi-tər-ˌswēt\

_noun_

  1. Something that is bittersweet; especiallypleasure alloyed with pain.
  2. A poisonous Eurasian vine ( _Solanum dulcamara_ ) of the nightshade family that has purple flowers and oval reddish berries and is naturalized in North America.



“Today we’re discussing the tale of Daedalus and Icarus, which a lot of you have probably talked about, at least briefly, in your introduction to classical mythology courses.”

Nico winced when his phone buzzed against the desk, looking up to the front of the lecture hall to see if Profession Chiron heard. His expression didn’t change, his elbows propped casually against his lecturer’s podium, though his eyes did flick towards Nico briefly, a hint of amusement in the lines around his mouth.

“I’m not going to spend much time on the actual content of the myth,” Chiron continued. “Daedalus was a genius architect, imprisoned by King Midas and forced to build a labyrinth to contain the Minotaur, his wife’s half-human, half-bull illegitimate son—”

 

FROM: Solace, 9:46 AM

petition for this day to be OVER

 

Nico shook his head and flipped his phone over, flicking the switch on the side to mute it. A second passed, then two, and then he flipped the phone back over and unlocked it.

 

TO: Solace, 9:47 AM

It’s not even 10, yet, Solace. You’ve got a long way to go.

 

FROM: Solace, 9:47 AM

i know, but i want to go get pizza from that really good place in town and i cant DO THAT until the day is OVER

 

TO: Solace, 9:48 AM

I am somewhat concerned that the status of your day revolves around pizza.

 

FROM: Solace, 9:48 AM

i am somewhat concerned that urs doesn’t

 

“…What we’re going to be looking at in more detail than the content is the actual _meaning_ of the story. Why, in other words, has it survived this long? What does the tragedy of Icarus tell us about ourselves, about the nature of children, about life?”

In the front of the lecture hall, a blond kid with a narrow, ratlike face whose name Nico could never remember (Octagon? Octopus?) raised his hand. “Icarus wasn’t a hero, though,” he pointed out. “This class is called Heroes and Monsters. Seems pretty inappropriate to me.”

Chiron raised an eyebrow. “That’s a fair point. However, in my experience, there is something deeply heroic in the endurance of suffering. To push through pain and hardship is, certainly, just as heroic as cutting down enemies on a battlefield.”

 

FROM: Solace, 9:52 PM

i think they’ve got that weird napoleon pizza u like

 

TO: Solace, 9:52 PM

Neapolitan, Solace.

 

FROM: Solace, 9:53 PM

ur coming, then??? (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:・ﾟ✧ 

 

“In recent years,” Chiron was saying, “there have been a multitude of different interpretations of the meaning of Icarus’s fall.” On the screen flashed a series of paintings of a chubby boy affixed with golden wings. There was something immensely sad in his face. “What is the story trying to say?”

Nico had never liked the story of Icarus. He remembered when they were in high school and Annabeth Chase attempted to explain to him why _she_ was drawn to it. “It’s poetic, Nico,” she’d said. “He gains his freedom and then abuses it, and that’s his downfall. His fatal flaw.”

_Avarice_ , Nico mouthed, just as Chiron said the same thing up front.

“Some historians argue that Icarus is a cautionary tale against greed,” Chiron continued. “And that interpretation makes a lot of sense. However, there are several others that are also both significant and intriguing.”

Nico remembered Percy Jackson leaning over to him after Annabeth left and whispering, “Look, don’t tell Annabeth, but I’m with you on this one. Icky-whatever seems mad depressing. The Greeks sure had a boner for tragedy.”

Nico has snorted at the time, and tried to hide his blush behind his hand. Now, a small smirk twitched up one corner of his mouth at the idea of Chiron saying the phrase _boner for tragedy_.

Percy was nothing if not eloquent.

Chiron changed the slide on the screen. Nico’s throat felt oddly thick.

“A cautionary tale against greed? It’s a possibility. Or maybe it’s an allegory regarding childhood, and the nature of humanity to take more than the world can give them. Or, perhaps, a question of whether it was worth it.”

_You can have the flying if you can take the falling_.

Chiron’s eyes travelled along the rows of students, resting on Nico for just a second too long. Nico scribbled down a couple notes and avoided eye contact.

“But the interesting thing about the tale of Icarus, the thing we always seem to forget, is that his world does not end in fire. You see, it may have been the sun that melted his wings, but it was the water below that killed him, in the end.”

 

After class ended, Nico pulled his phone out of his pocket and hurried out into the quad, his fingers shaking a little bit as they punched out a number he couldn’t believe his muscles still remembered.

The phone rang three times before being answered.

“Um. Hey. It’s Nico. Di Angelo. Sorry for the late notice, but would you… ah… be willing to meet me for lunch, possibly?”

 

By the time Nico arrived at the Olive Branch Café, which sat about five minutes off Olympus University’s central campus, regret was bubbling thick and icy in his stomach. The call had been an impulse. A half an hour ago, it had seemed so self-evident, a logical step to take. Now, though, Nico’s chest felt hollow, scraped-out.

He considered turning around and walking back home instead, but that felt, absurdly, like losing, and losing wasn’t really an option for Nico. Not at this point. So he adjusted the way his maroon beanie sat on his head, held in place by the thicker hair on top, and marched inside.

Percy Jackson was sitting at a table near the counter, chatting animatedly with Grover Underwood, who was working the register several feet away. When Percy spotted Nico, he half rose from his chair and waved enthusiastically.

Nico nodded and slouched over, taking the seat opposite Percy. He dropped his bag on the floor with a heavy _thump_.

“You still take your coffee black, kiddo?” Grover asked. He was taller than Nico remembered, less zitty, ungainly and more graceful, self-assured. He’d cut his mess of brown curls short, though he still had the same sandy goatee Nico remembered from high school.

“Oh. Um, yeah, I do,” Nico said. “Thanks.”

“No problem.” Grover winked at him and retreated to the coffee machine, pausing to pull a rag out of the pocket of his green apron and rub a spot off the countertop.

It had been a long, long time since Nico had allowed himself to look – seriously _look_ – at Percy Jackson. He looked different, too, the lines of his face a little sharper, the set of his mouth a little softer. He wore a white button up under a blue sweater the almost exact color of his eyes. It made them look lighter and wider, almost surprised.

Nico smirked a little. “Annabeth picked your shirt, didn’t she?”

Percy deflated. “How’d you know?”

“Because you have the dress sense of a colorblind walrus. Always have.”

Percy pressed a hand to his chest. “Okay, excuse me, there is no need to insult walruses, Mr. di Angelo. I’m sure they would have a much better fashion sense than me if they wore clothing.”

Nico laughed. Grover leaned across the counter to hand him his coffee.

“I gotta admit, I was kinda surprised you called,” Percy said, once the drink was safely in Nico’s hands.

“Yeah. I – I was too, actually. But I don’t want to keep running anymore.”

The line of Percy’s mouth narrowed a little bit and he nodded. “I think I understand.”

Nico sighed. “I don’t know if you do, Percy. I don’t know if _I_ understand. I just wanted to talk to you.”

Percy nodded again, and then he smiled. “Talking it is. I love talking. It’s my second-favorite pastime.”

“The first being eating,” Nico supplied.

Percy grinned. “Exactly.”

“How’s your mom?”

“Good!” Percy took a sip of his iced tea. “On her second novel, now.”

“She published the first one?”

“Yep! About a year and a half ago.” Percy hesitated, moving the straw around in his drink, before adding, “She’d send you a copy, if you wanted one. She’d probably send you the entirety of the contents of our house if you asked. She talks about you a lot.”

“I miss the blue birthday cake,” Nico allowed.

Percy laughed. “I’ll have her send you one next year.”

The conversation jumped, breathed, gained life of its own. They talked about upcoming Marvel movies and debated _Superman vs. Batman_ for almost twenty minutes. Percy told Nico about the swim team, about graduation and the test for his teacher’s license coming up, about how he was still trying to decide whether he’d prefer to work in a middle or high school. Nico mentioned taking a semester abroad in Italy, and Percy raved about his own in Spain.

“You should’ve seen the _ocean_ , Nico, it was so blue, blue like I’ve never _seen_ —”

It wasn’t quite _comfortable_. It had been too long for the words to flow easy, even considering Percy’s grace when it came to other people. But Grover kept sneaking Nico cookies, and never once did he panic about Bianca, and it was close, so close, to being nice.

“So are you and that Valdez kid still rooming together? Leo, right?”

“Yeah. You still with Grover?”

Percy and Grover exchanged a glance and Grover made a fake gagging motion. “Yep. Four years now.”

“Four years of singing Beyoncé in the shower,” Grover griped, “and leaving lights on when he leaves the room.”

“Hey. Beyoncé is important.”

“So is the environment, Jackson!”

Percy turned back to Nico. “This is the last year, though. After we graduate, Grover’s joining the Marines.”

“I’m joining the _Peace Corps,_ Percy.”

“Same thing.”

“That’s not even _close_ to being the same thing.”

Percy tossed a napkin at Grover’s head and turned back to Percy. “Annabeth and I are going up to Boston. She’s doing graduate school in the city, so I’m going to go with her.”

Nico waited for the tug in his stomach that always used to accompany Annabeth’s name. It didn’t come. Instead, when he said, “Wow, that sounds really amazing. Congrats,” there was no note of falseness in his voice, not even to his own ears. The small smile he offered Percy felt genuine.

“What about you? You settled down yet? Find a nice hand to hold and whatnot?”

Nico hesitated, and then blurted, “Yeah, actually.”

“Really?” Percy’s eyebrows shot up and he leaned closer. “What’s her name? Is she pretty?”

“Well… you met him, actually. His name’s Will. And I guess he _is_ fairly pretty.”

Percy blinked at him, his mouth open slightly.

“Um.”

Nico took a swig of his coffee. It was too hot.

“You’re…”

Nico nodded. “Super gay, yeah.”

Percy’s eyebrows furrowed, and Nico could practically _see_ him running the calculations in his head.  _How long has he been gay? Were there other boyfriends that Percy never noticed? How could Percy have_ missed _it?_

“Don’t hurt yourself,” Nico said.

“He seems nice,” Percy offered, a little weakly.

“Pretty nice, yeah.”

“How long… have you…?”

Nico shrugged. “Awhile.”

“I never knew.”

“I wasn’t out.” Percy still looked a little lost, so Nico reached forward and patted him on the hand a bit. “You don’t need to worry about it.”

“Well, shit. I guess I owe Annabeth twenty bucks,” Percy said, in a tone of voice akin to someone announcing an imminent apocalypse.

“You _took_ a _bet_ —?”

Nico’s phone buzzed again, and he almost moved it aside before he realized it wasn’t a text from Will but a call from Seph.

“I should probably take this,” he said to Percy, who released a long, heavy breath. “It’s my stepmom.”

“Oh!” Percy brightened noticeably. “Tell her I said hi!”

“Yeah, sure.” Nico got up from the table and moved towards the front door, slinging his jacket over his shoulders. “Hi, Seph. This isn’t an awesome time, can I call you back—?”

“Nico,” Seph said.

Something was wrong.

“Nico, I’m sorry…”

Her voice was off, wobbly, thick with something that might’ve been anger and might’ve been tears. When she spoke again, the words snagged in her mouth, like they were catching in her throat coming out.

“Nico, look, I need you to stay calm for me, okay?” Stay calm? He was calm. Completely cool, actually. In fact, Nico’s body felt like ice. “It’s Hazel.”

Of course.

Of course it was Hazel.

( _Nononononotagainnotagainican’tdothisagain.)_

“There’s been an accident.”

When the phone fell out of Nico’s hand, it hit the ground with a sound like the end of the world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lmao oops


	20. Cope

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the di Angelo men begin to discover the right and wrong ways to deal with things that hurt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “dolor hic tibi proderit olim.”  
> – Ovid

cope

kōp/ 

_verb_

To deal effectively with something difficult.

 

The worst part of the whole ordeal, Nico thought, was that he couldn’t seem to rid himself of the stink of hospital. It clung to his clothes, clung to his skin, antiseptic and wilted flowers and death, heavy in his hair and on his shoulders.

The bruises on Hazel’s face looked like the rainbow of an oil slick. There was a cut above her eye, held together with a set of wicked-looking stitches, and she’d broken her left arm, but Hazel’s doctor, who was tall and blond and had an easy, jagged smile, promised Nico she was better than she looked.

(“It’s the fluorescent lights,” Seph told him later, waving an airy hand at the ceiling with an expression of vague distaste wrinkling her nose. “They wash her skin out.”)

He’d gone straight to the hospital after landing in the Seattle airport. The handsome blond doctor let him crash on the chair in the corner of Hazel’s room, still dressed in skinny jeans and his leather jacket. He winked and made Nico promise not to tell, and Nico was reminded, suddenly and violently, of Will.

That night, he dreamed that he was running, chasing a girl that looked like Hazel. She wasn’t walking fast, but he couldn’t seem to catch up to her; it was like the air was molasses around his legs. She ran out into the road and pushed a young Percy Jackson out of the way of an incoming car.

When Nico reached her body, she was on her stomach on the street, and she wasn’t Hazel anymore, but Bianca. He stooped down to turn her over, away from the pavement, but it wasn’t Bianca’s eyes that were staring up, sightless, out of her face.

It was Will’s.

He woke up panting, stiff-necked and sorely in need of a cup of strong coffee. It took him almost an entire minute to realize that Hazel was awake, too. They had her taking some weird painkillers, so her voice was downy, altered by sleep and the medication, when she confessed, “I sort of hoped you wouldn’t hear.”

“That’s idiotic.” His voice still sounded altered by the nightmare.

“I didn’t want you to worry.”

Nico’s hands clenched down on the arms of his chair. “Well, I did.”

Hazel nodded and looked up at the tiled ceiling. She looked better in the dark, with moonlight from the window illuminating her face instead of overhead lights.

“I’m sorry.”

“What the hell happened, Hazel?”

She shrugged, and then winced, and Nico wanted to punch something. “It was stupid. Really stupid. In a car, going too fast, took a turn a little wrong, ended up in a ditch. It could’ve been worse.”

“Jesus,” Nico muttered. “Jesus Christ.”

“I’m sorry.”

He shook his head, buried his face in his hands.

“I’m _okay_ , Nico.”

“Yeah,” he said. His voice sounded wrong.

“I’m sorry.”

“I can’t lose you, Hazel. I… you’re too…” Nico looked up, forced himself to meet her eyes. “I love you so much and I need you, okay? I need you here. Please don’t leave me.”

“I’m not going anywhere.” Her voice broke.

“Okay,” he said. “Okay. Me neither.”

Hazel’s smile was watery when she said, “Good.”

“Promise?”

“I promise, Neeks.”

“Good.” He shifted himself into a more comfortable position on the chair and squeezed his eyes shut tight. “Me, too.”

 

He did end up going home the next morning, when the nurse on the early shift walked into the room and flipped his shit. It took about twenty minutes to convince him that a.) yes, Doctor Apollo _had_ said Nico could stay and, b.) no, he was not Hazel’s boyfriend, he was her _brother_. He finally let Nico flee the scene after Hazel started to recite Martin Luther King Jr.’s ‘I have a dream’ speech.

In the cab on the way home, Nico called Frank. The other boy picked up after a single ring.

“Is she okay?” Frank demanded, by way of a greeting.

Nico considered being sarcastic, but he couldn’t seem to find it inside himself. “She’s all right. Some nasty bumps, a broken arm. Doc says she should be out of the hospital tonight or tomorrow; they’re just trying to monitor the concussion.”

There was a deep sigh on the other end. “Thank God.”

“Or something,” Nico agreed.

“How long are you planning on staying out there?”

“Probably through the weekend. I want to make sure she’s stable, able to get around with only one hand, stuff like that.”

“Have her call me, all right? As soon as she feels up to it.”

Nico nodded, then realized Frank couldn’t see him and felt like an idiot. “Of course.”

“Also, I’ve got somebody here who wants to talk to you.”

Nico sighed and muttered a half-formed affirmation. There was some thumping on the other end of the line as the phone changed hands. Nico just breathed. There was a deep-seeded ache in his bones, the inevitable crash after the adrenaline rush. He wanted to sleep, wanted to cry, wanted to wrap himself in a blanket and bury his face.

He expected Jason’s voice. That wasn’t what he got.

“Death Boy? Hey, are you… are you all right? Is _Hazel_ all right? Where are you? Have you eaten? Are you—?”

“ _Solace_?”

 Will took a heavy, shuddering breath. “Hi.”

“I… meant to text you. I’m sorry.”

“No! I didn’t want to _guilt_ you, I just wanted to – that is, I needed to know – Nico, are you _okay_?”

Nico hesitated, took stock. “I’m fine.”

“Was it a car crash?”

“Hazel says they were speeding.”

Will groaned. Nico could picture him, the crease between his eyebrows, the lines around his lips as they twisted into a scowl. “Frick.”

“She’s okay.”

There was a pause.

“What about you?”

“I’m not the one who was in a car crash, Solace.”

“No,” Will agreed. “But there are lots of different kinds of hurt, Nico. And you keep half of them bottled up inside your chest.”

Losing Bianca had been fire, dull heat and serrated edges, the taste of ashes and smoke on Nico’s tongue.

The seconds in which he thought he lost Hazel were ice.

It was like being slapped in the face, over and over and over again, cold metal pressed on skin, broken glass dragging ragged, raw cuts into his chest cavity. Losing Hazel was glacial, everything inside him withered and rotten and shattered.

“It’s okay, love. You’re okay.”

Oh. Nico was crying, wasn’t he?

_No, nonono, stop it, get ahold of yourself, don’t—_

“Listen to me, Nico di Angelo. It’s okay to cry, do you hear me? I know what you’re thinking, and it’s not weakness to let me in, okay? It’s _not_. It’s strength, and I love you, and it’s okay to cry.”

_I’m afraid._

_I’m cold._

_I miss you and your voice is right there, cupped in my hand, pressed against my ear._

_I miss you and you’re a thousand miles away._

“Bianca,” Nico choked, “would’ve loved you.”

Will laughed. “The feeling would’ve probably been mutual.”

 

Dinner that night was Asian food takeout and silence. Seph was at the hospital with Hazel, so it was just Nico and Hades at the small, round table in the corner of the enormous, gleaming kitchen. Hades’ hair was uncharacteristically rumpled, even curling a little, like he’d forgotten to gel it down that morning. He was still wearing his work clothes, a collared shirt and a slate-gray tie, and he wore wire-rimmed glasses Nico didn’t remember, perched on the end of his nose. It made him look older.

Nico was still wearing the Doc Martins he’d worn at the hospital, scuffed and laced wrong, paired with a gray sweatshirt under a black denim vest and ripped jeans. Looking at Hades sort of made him felt like he’d rolled in from the gutter. He wasn’t sure whether that felt like a victory or not.

His Pad Thai tasted like dust in his mouth. He wanted to call Will.

“I’m sorry about the mess,” Hades said, suddenly. He waved a hand to indicate a stack of books and a pile of clean dishes on the countertop. The kitchen was otherwise spotless. “I would’ve asked the housekeepers to pick up a bit had I known you were coming home.”

Nico snorted. “I’ve lived with college guys for three years now, Dad. This is _not_ a mess.”

Hades’ eyebrows furrowed. “We’ll talk to your university about the studies you’re missing. Will you be able to—?”

“I’ve kept up so far.”

A muscle jumped in his father’s jaw. “You’re angry with me.”

Nico rolled his eyes and took a bite of his food, more aggressively than he probably had to. “You’re just now noticing?”

“Why?”

Nico sighed. “I don’t want to do this right now, Dad. Let’s just finish eating so we can go pick up Seph and check on Hazel, all right?”

Hades’ voice sounded stiff when he said, “No. No, that is _not_ all right. I want you to talk to me, Nico. I almost lost my daughter yesterday and—”

“Almost.”

Hades said nothing. Nico’s hands were shaking.

“You _almost_ lost your daughter.”

Somehow, the room seemed quieter than it had before they started talking.

“Yes,” Hades said, quiet, cautious. “But Hazel is fine, so—”

“Hazel’s fine, yeah. Bianca’s dead.”

His father winced, physically drew away from Nico like he’d spat fire instead of his sister’s name. Rage bubbled up in Nico’s stomach like venom, itchy heat in his chest and his muscles and his eyes.

“Bianca’s dead,” he said again, in a voice dripping with vitriol. “You can hide all her pictures, never say her name, dance around it all you want, but she’s fucking dead and buried, and that’s not gonna change—”

Hades’ face drained of color. “Please don’t speak to me like that, Nico—”

“No. No, you know what? I want you to listen. I want you to _hear me_ for once in my goddamn life. Bianca’s dead, and it _was not my fault_.”

Hades blinked at him.

“I watched her die. I couldn’t help her. I _couldn’t_ , okay? That’s the way it is. But I was just a kid, all right? Just a kid. What was I supposed to do? I’ve never been a hero.”

The food was probably getting cold.

Nico should probably stop talking.

He couldn’t seem to make his mouth stop moving.

“I can’t keep carrying her, Dad. She was my sister, and now she’s gone, but I can’t stop hearing those stupid words. ‘ _What the hell happened, Nico? How could you let them play in the road_?’ I was a _kid_. A _child_. And you fucking put her death onto my shoulders, and I’ve carried it around with me every since.”

“I never,” Hades said, stiffly, “intended for you to feel like that.”

“And then you stopped looking at me. And I stopped being able to look at myself, too.”

They stared at each other. Nico couldn’t remember the last time his dad had looked him in the eyes.

“You know, maybe if you bothered to talk to me, you would’ve known that I was captain of the soccer team my senior year. Maybe you would’ve known I was getting all those piercings because I knew it would piss you off. Maybe you would’ve known that my first love was Percy fucking _Jackson_. I already lost a sister that day. Thanks to you, I lost my father, too.”

He’d never really noticed how Hazel and their father had the same eyes. He’d always sort of assumed she’d just looked like Seph, down to the bone, down to the framework of her DNA.

“You… you’re…?”

“Remind me,” Nico said, getting up from the table to put his plates in the sink, “to introduce you to my boyfriend sometime. His name’s Will. He’s nice.”

He felt Hades’ eyes on him as he left the room, that hot coil of anger still burning inside of him. He was about to slam the door behind him when he heard, very softly, “I’m sorry.”

Nico froze, one hand on the doorknob.

“I’m sorry,” Hades muttered. “I didn’t know – I still don’t know… Bianca, she… My little girl – I didn’t know how to cope.”

 It took Nico a second to realize that Hades was crying. Silent tears, like the ones that traced their way down Hazel’s cheeks last night. It made the fire in his stomach feel less like anger and more like cruelty.

“That wasn’t coping, Dad,” he said. “That was fear.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so I'm still laughing about the response to the last chapter. You guys comment so much more vigorously when I do something mean to you (maybe I should almost kill characters more often - I'm kidding, I won't do that).  
> In all seriousness, though, I'm sorry about the cliffhanger. Thank you for bearing with me!!


	21. Illusion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Of nightmares, phone calls, and the art of giving solace.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “You are what you love, not who loves you.”  
> – Fall Out Boy (Save Rock and Roll)

il·lu·sion

iˈlo͞oZHən/

_noun_

1\. A thing that is or is likely to be wrongly perceived or interpreted by the senses.

2\. Of a deceptive appearance or impression.

3\. A false idea or belief.

 

He didn’t understand much, and what he did understand was this: he was walking, and it was dark.

This was not night-dark. Not shadow-dark. This was deliberate, contrived blackness, thick like dripping paint, running down in front of his eyes until he was blind with it, choked with it, strangled with it. He had the vague idea that darkness like this should’ve been impossible, though he wasn’t sure where it came from.

He wasn’t sure of anything at all.

The path underneath the bare skin of his feet was well worn, uneven, lined with rocks and dust, gradually but undeniably sloping downwards. The air that clung to him like a coat, a second skin, was thick and heavy – hot, too hot – and smelled like sulfur, tasted of formaldehyde.

In his ear, a very quiet voice whispered, _Go back, go back. This is not a place for the living_.

_Was_ he alive? He wasn’t really sure. His breathing was soundless and shallow, the gravel digging into his feet painless, the thrum of his pulse against his skin immeasurably gentle.

Maybe he was currently alive, but dying?

(He couldn’t remember his own name.)

He kept walking, pressing forward, allowing the pull of the path in front of him to draw him onwards. It felt like there was some sort of immense center of gravity ahead of him, something that hooked claws in his hair and shoulders and heart and dragged at him.

_It’s not your time yet_ , the voice in his ear whispered again. Breath on his neck, cold, like the touch of something long, long dead. _I can’t decide for you, nobody can, but you need to understand that it’s not your time to join me_.

He paused. When he reached up to touch his face, his fingers came away dripping with something hot and liquid and copper-scented.

He turned around and began to walk uphill. He thought he heard something screeching behind him, something monstrous and furious and the size of the sky. The claws in his heart pulled him backwards, but the voice in his ear pushed him on.

The path grew steeper.

It was so, so dark.

The feeling of numbness, of separation, began to fade. Soon, he became aware of an aching in his legs, an inching in his skin, an unshakable sense of _wrongness_ that he couldn’t describe and couldn’t contain.

He wanted to scream, to turn back around. There was fire inside his chest, breath inside his lungs. There was loneliness and fear and anger and loss, and it was heavy, so heavy, and he wanted to turn around, to immerse himself in the nothing again, to join the thing in the pit and s t o p.

And then light shattered the black. It fragmented around him, physically fell away, until the world was golden and green and crimson-yellow-pink. He was standing in the living room of a home he vaguely recognized in the way you recognize a story you heard when you were very small, told again by a different person years later. A boy was in front of him, and it seemed that the light came from his eyes, blue blue blue, blue like the sky.

He smiled, and it was like the sun breaking through clouds, like returning home after a long trip abroad, like the feeling of falling in love.

“I didn’t know whether you would come back.”

“Neither did I,” Nico realized.

“But you did.” Will grinned at him and took a step forward. When he reached to cup Nico’s cheek in his hand, his fingertips felt real, solid, warm. “Will you stay?”

If it meant he could keep Will’s hands on his face, if it meant he could keep Will’s eyes on his own, he’d stay. Stay as long as it took. As long as Will wanted him.

He didn’t realize he’d said this out loud until Will laughed and brushed the bangs up and off of Nico’s forehead. “Getting sentimental, Death Boy?”

“That,” Nico said, “is your fault.”

Will laughed, musical and quiet, and tilted his head down so he could trail his lips along Nico’s cheekbone. Electricity crackled down Nico’s spine, white noise emanating from the point of contact.

“You understand what you’re choosing,” Will whispered in Nico’s ear.

_I’m choosing you_.

No, that wasn’t right.

_I’m choosing life._

No. That wasn’t it, either.

“I’m choosing me,” Nico said. “To forgive myself. For everything, for all of it. Bianca wasn’t my fault. Being gay wasn’t my fault. Dad not talking to me wasn’t my fault. None of it – none of it…”

He could feel Will smiling against his skin. “I’m glad,” Will whispered, his voice low and soft and magnetic. “You should always choose yourself, Nico di Angelo. You should always pick yourself first.”

When he said it – _you should always pick yourself first_ – it was Will’s voice, yeah, but it was Bianca’s too, and Hazel’s, and Jason’s, and Percy Jackson’s. It was the memory of Nico’s mother’s voice. It was the idea of his father’s laughter.

“This is a dream, isn’t it?”

Will’s lips found his earlobe. “What do you want it to be, Death Boy?”

Nico turned his head, reached up to trap Will there, to guide their mouths together.

He woke up in his bed in Seattle, completely still, staring up at the night-dark-shadow-dark ceiling, tasting Will’s breath on his tongue.

(Orange gum and toothpaste. Just like real life.)

 

Nico lay awake for what felt like hours after that, watching time tick by. His bedside clock said 3:45 AM; the mental math took him a little while, but his sleep-addled brain managed to calculate that the East Coast was three hours ahead of the West. That put Olympus University at quarter of seven on a weekday morning.

That seemed reasonable enough. Nico reached over, rummaged around on the bedside table until he found his phone, and called Will.

He answered on the fourth ring. (Not that Nico was counting.)

“Nico? Is everything okay? Isn’t it, like, the middle of the night there? Are you all right? You’re not making bad decisions, are you—?”

Will’s voice. Real Will, flesh-and-blood Will, kind eyes and awkward jokes and flushed ears Will.

“I’m fine, Solace,” Nico interrupted, a little more gently than he usually would (sentimental, just like dream-Will had said). “Calm down. Breathe.”

Will did, slow and careful and deep, and it was probably the best sound Nico had ever heard.

“Sorry,” Will said, a little sheepishly. “It’s just… why are you calling me at two in the morning?”

“It’s actually closer to four, here.”

“The point still stands.”

“Three forty-five, to be exact.”

“Death Boy.”

“Actually, three forty-eight, now—”

“ _Nico_.”

“I called because I wanted to hear your fucking voice, you fucking sap. That all right?” Nico snapped. There was a smile on his face he couldn’t quite stifle, though.

Will was quiet for an uncharacteristically long time.

“You alive over there, Solace?”

“I,” Will said, his voice a little tight, “am trying to control myself before responding so I don’t say something humiliating.”

Nico snorted. “Like what?”

“Like how I wish I was there so I could suck you off.”

Nico dropped the phone.

It took awhile to find it in the dark. When he did, and put it back to his ear, he could hear Will laughing on the other end.

“Sorry, sorry… I did _tell_ you it was humiliating, though.”

“For fuck’s sake, Solace—”

“You were warned! I did my best!”

And then they both were quiet, and the mental image of Will’s head moving down the line of Nico’s body, coming to rest between his thighs, was (fucking _shit_ ) a little too much. Nico’s face was too hot and his voice wavered when he muttered, “We should probably… not do anything… stupid.”

“I love stupid things, though,” Will said, brightly. “Stupid things are my second favorite thing to do.”

“I’m not going to ask what your first favorite is because I am ninety-eight percent positive you’re going to hit me with a shitty pick-up line and I don’t think I can survive the secondhand embarrassment.”

“You’re killin’ me here, love.”

“Somebody’s gotta be the voice of reason in this relationship.”

“That _is_ one option. An alterative option would be to do something stupid.”

Nico really, _really_ wanted to be stupid.

“I think,” he said, choosing his words carefully, “when I get back—”

Will said, “Okay,” too quickly, and Nico responded, “Okay,” in almost the same manner, immediately afterwards.

And then it was quiet, and Nico listened to himself breathe, and he listened to Will breathe, and it was a million miles away from his nightmare, and yet somehow he could still feel the vision under his fingertips, brush their jagged edges.

“I had a bad dream,” he heard himself say.

Will made a soft _oh_ sound of understanding. “Is that why you called me?”

Nico hummed an affirmation. “You were in it.”

“What was I doing?”

The memory of dream-Will trailing his nose along the lines of Nico’s features burned across Nico’s mind like a comet.

“Talking,” he said, because it wasn’t a lie.

“Well, that’s boring.” Will laughed. “What was I talking about?”

“You told me I should always pick myself first.”

Will’s laughter bubbled down. When he spoke again, his voice was a little more somber. “Your mental version of me is a lot wiser than the real me is.”

“I don’t think so.” Nico looked down, traced a finger across one of his own tattoos in the semi-darkness. “You’ve taught me a lot. More than I thought you would.”

“Because I was your idiotic neighbor who hit you with a door and then woke you up in the middle of the night by singing Taylor Swift?”

“Exactly.”

“If I say something sappy,” Will said, “will you forgive me?”

“Absolutely not,” Nico said automatically. Then he hesitated. “Well. It depends, I guess.”

“I think maybe we were meant to meet each other.”

“What, like… fate, or something?”

Will said, “Eh. Not really. Not fate. Just… somehow, I think we were always going to find each other. As stupid as that sounds.”

“It does sound fucking stupid.”

Will chuckled. “Do you forgive me?”

Did he? Nico’s mind trailed over his time with Will, probed at their meeting and Will’s four in the morning cry-fest and Will’s pigheaded, stubborn insistence on their becoming friends. The stupid fights and the Halloween Fiasco and the way Will’s touch seemed to make Nico’s world take on color. The look on Seph’s face when Nico finally came out. The taste of Will’s lips and Will’s sweat and Will’s love.

“Yeah,” Nico said. “I guess I forgive you.”

“Good.”

Nico reached upwards towards the ceiling, his hand open, fingers splayed.

“I need to go to class, love.”

“Can you check on Leo tonight? Make sure he hasn’t made anything accessible only by remote control? I should be home by the end of the week.”

“Of course.”

Neither hung up, and then they both said, “Um.”

Awkward laughter from both ends, and then Nico indicated for Will to continue.

“I’ll be here,” he said, “for as long as you need me.”

Nico rolled his eyes. “That’s gonna be a long damn time, then.”

“Good.”

He’d been smiling for too long. It was starting to hurt his face.

“Good.”

“Good.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, much like Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes, we have reached the end of the line. This was the last traditional chapter; I'm going to follow it up in the next week or so with an epilogue (and probably tears).  
> I want to thank you all so much for sticking with me over the past two months or so. You've all been incredibly patient and supportive, and I am so, so lucky to have all of you. I cannot thank you enough.


	22. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which bacon is burned, a wedding is had, and Nico di Angelo loves Will Solace a whooooole bunch.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “My flesh was its own shield:  
> Where it was gashed, it healed.  
> …  
> A world of wonders in  
> Each challenge to the skin.  
> …  
> As if hands were enough  
> To hold an avalanche off.”  
> -Thom Gunn

Four Years Later

 

love

ləv/

_noun_

_verb_

Indefinable.

 

The morning of his sister’s wedding, Nico woke up to light the color of a whisper, the smell of cooking bacon, and the sound of Will Solace, in the kitchen, drumming on the countertop and belting out the opening song to Disney’s _Hercules_.

Nico rolled over in bed and muffled his smile in the pillow, which smelled like fabric softener and Will’s shampoo (the same scent as when they were in college: sandalwood and sunshine).

It was stupid and cheesy, but the smell of their bed always reminded Nico of back when they first met, when their knees would brush in the library and Will would stare up at the ceiling and not pull away. If he had to describe it, he’d say the feeling was two parts nerves – stomach-fall-out-from-under-you jitters – and two parts comfort, like reaching out to hold a hand you knew would squeeze back.

In the kitchen, Will was attempting to sing each of the five parts in the melody, and it smelled like he was burning the bacon.

Nico sighed and sat up, the cheap sheets twisted around his bare legs, and reached up to push a hand through his hair, trying to comb out the knots with his fingers. As a favor to his dad, he’d lost the undercut shortly after graduating. Now, it was a little less blatantly ‘fuck you’ and a little more professional, though still unkempt and too long around his ears.

(He’d never tell Hades, but he was pretty sure if he’d applied at the New York University of Elysium with the hairstyle he’d had in college, they probably wouldn’t have hired him. But he didn’t, and they’d offered him a good position in the research division of the classics department, so he planned on taking the secret to the grave.)

Yeah, Will was _definitely_ burning the bacon out there.

Nico stood and scanned the room for clothing, grabbing a pair of clean boxers off the bureau and a gray t-shirt that was more than likely Will’s off the floor. The room was small, with dark blue walls that made it look smaller; there wasn’t much room for anything besides the few, sparse pieces of elderly furniture and Will’s pile of textbooks from his PhD classes. It was the same throughout the rest of their apartment: tight fitting, spottily furnished, and littered with books.

They’d moved in together shortly after graduating, which was probably one of the least practical decisions Nico had ever made. Finances were difficult: Nico refused to take money from his family if he could avoid it, and Will’s family didn’t have any money to give. Small and sparse (and inconveniently located, about a half an hour outside of the city) was the solution they’d reached; it was that or have roommates, and with Austin in the Midwest and Leo moving to California to attend graduate school, the options for boarders were… limited, to say the least. Neither wanted to turn to Craigslist.

Out in the kitchen, Will tried to hit a high note. Nico winced and pulled his shirt on, striding out to assess the damage.

Sure enough, Will was scraping charred bacon off the skillet, determinedly maintaining his harmony with himself. He seemed to have scrounged for clothes on the bedroom floor, too, because he was wearing only an old pair of sweatpants that sat dangerously low on his hips. His thick-framed glasses, purchased in the past year or so, perched crooked on his nose and his hair was pulled back into a stubby ponytail at the base of his skull.

“Well, as appetizing as _that_ looks,” Nico said dryly, “I sort of wish you’d woken me up if you wanted breakfast that badly.”

Will jumped a little and spun around, his pan in one hand and the butter knife he was using to try and clean it in the other. He gave Nico a sheepish smile. “I wanted to surprise you.”

“I’m certainly surprised.”

“I’m detecting a hint of sarcasm.”

“I’m detecting a hint of burnt bacon.”

Will pointed at Nico with the butter knife and stuck his bottom lip out. “Fine. _You_ do it, Gordon Ramsay.”

Nico rolled his eyes but took the knife out of Will’s hand, set the crusty skillet aside, and grabbed a clean one out of the cabinet. “Grab me some eggs out of the fridge, too?”

“You got it.”

Nico could feel Will watching him as he got to work cracking the eggs and greasing the pan. He had his Science Face on, the one he used when he looked over patients at the pediatric clinic or while doing homework. A furrow between the eyebrows, slight creases around the eyes, his teeth worrying at his lower lip.

Nico reached back and punched him gently on the shoulder. “Don’t hurt yourself, Solace.”

The crease between Will’s eyebrows smoothed, and he stuck his tongue out in Nico’s direction. The room smelled warm, yellow, salty – melting butter and frying bacon and the freckles on Will’s collarbones.

“Still don’t understand how you do that,” Will mumbled.

Nico shrugged. “Guess I’m just good with my hands.”

“Better with your mouth, though.”

“Oh, good, trying to seduce me before breakfast. And here I was, just starting to think you’d gotten your mind out of the gutter—”

Will lifted his chin and jabbed a finger in his direction. “I take that as a challenge, sir.”

“Oh, no, really, you shouldn’t—”

For a blond, blue-eyed, freckled boy with a smile like a damn angel, Will really could look downright dangerous sometimes. He closed the distance between them in a couple steps, trapping Nico in the corner, his hands braced on the countertop on either side of him. Smiling slightly, he leaned down to whisper, breath hot against Nico’s ear, “Aw, come on, Death Boy—”

“Are you ever going to stopcalling me Death Boy?”

Will’s teeth caught Nico’s earlobe.

“You could try to make me,” he purred.

Nico choked on air.

When Will pulled back to rest his forehead against Nico’s, his mouth was twitching upwards. “Still want me to get my mind out of the gutter?”

Nico growled inarticulately and reached up to cup a hand around Will’s neck, drawing their mouths together.

Their kisses now had a certain sort of acquainted ease that they’d lacked in the beginning. Nico knew how to tilt his head, how to run his tongue along the inside of Will’s mouth to make him groan, how to knot his fingers in Will’s hair and pull him closer, closer, until they were less two people and more one entity. Will’s hands were incautious, experienced, _expert_ as he hooked his thumbs in the waistband of Nico’s boxers and tugged him forward, so that their chests were pressed together.

For most of his life, Nico had believed that love flared too brightly to last very long. At first it was fireworks, or whatever, but fireworks fade. They burn themselves out, consumed by the heat of their own reactions. But he didn’t love Will less than he had when he met him. Sometimes he loved him different, but he never loved him less.

When they drew apart, they were both a little out of breath. Will pressed a sloppy kiss to Nico’s cheek and Nico shoved him away theatrically, sticking his tongue out. “I’m not scraping burnt bacon off another damn frying pan, Solace.”

“It was an honest mistake.”

“You’re honestly hopeless.”

Will looked bleak. “I’m pretty sure the last thing I cooked without incident was Ramen noodles.”

“Didn’t you drop the wrapper in the boiling water a couple days ago?”

“You know, I think I did.”

And then they were giggling, Will’s head falling onto Nico’s shoulder, Nico reaching up to muffle his laughter in his hand. Will sucked in air too quickly and snorted, and the two of them started laughing harder, the kind of full-body, low-stomach laughter that makes your chest feel like it’s about to implode.

“It smells like it’s burning again, Nico—”

“Fucking _shit_.”

 

The first thing Nico heard Hades di Angelo say that night was, “I’d forgotten how much I thoroughly hate weddings.” The second thing was, “Oh, hello, Nico. I was starting to wonder whether you were going to come over.”

Hazel and Frank’s ceremony was small and quiet, in a hotel ballroom near their home in upstate New York. Hazel looked beautiful, not so much because of her dress or her makeup but because of the enormous smile that was painted across her face like a sunrise, radiant and euphoric. Frank looked nice, too, though Nico did make a point to tell him that his socks were mismatched.

After the ceremony, the hotel staff set up chairs and tables around the dance floor. Leo had flown across the country to be here and had insisted on being allowed to DJ, so the music was loud and bass-heavy and slurred, one song bleeding into the other. The colored lights flashing around the edge of the dance floor made the whole thing look surreal, like something out of a Picasso painting.

Nico had found his father at one of the round, white-draped tables in the corner, as far away from the dancing as it was possible to be. Through the people, Nico could see Will and Jason having an enormously uncoordinated dance-off, with Piper shaking her head exhaustedly behind them.

“You looked bored out of your skull,” Nico observed over the music.

“Persephone is ‘mingling.’”

“ _Oooh_ , exciting. You’re missing out on a grand opportunity there.”

Hades never seemed to age – Nico thought he had probably been born looking like a debonair forty-something, and would probably die like that, too. His hair was just as dark, his suit just as impeccable, his face just as unlined as Nico remembered it being when he was a kid.

Now, his face twisted into an uncomfortable scowl and he leaned across the table to say, “Frank Zhang’s grandmother has asked me about my love life five times so far.”

Nico shrugged. “Grandma prerogative, I think.”

“I am a grown man, Nico. I have been married for over twenty years.”

“Nobody is safe from the grandma prerogative.”

They’d asked him about _his_ love life, too. It had been a long, long time since Nico had thought that the parts of him that loved Will Solace were broken. It still felt strange to own up to them in public, though. And there were still confused looks, awkward silences, too-quick assurances that, “Oh, yes, of course, don’t you _worry_. I’m very supportive of gays. My next-door neighbors are gay, and we get along fabulously.”

Will was better at fielding that stuff than Nico was. Will could smile, laugh, clap the person on the shoulder and politely make his excuses and leave. But the condescending tone people took with them made Nico’s skin itch.

There was a time when he would’ve told them to fuck off and stormed out. Will’s presence at his side made that a lot harder.

“Hazel looks happy,” Nico said, quietly, more to himself than his father.

“She does,” Hades agreed. “Frank’s always been good to her. And she’s been good to him.”

“You think it’ll work out?”

Hades shrugged. “Hard to say. I do know they love each other, though. Frank’s meant the world to Hazel ever since they met. Whatever happens, I think they’ll find a way to work through it.”

Nico nodded.

“How have you been, Nico? Is everything all right at the university?”

“I’m going to ask Will to marry me.”

Hades froze.

Nico stared down at his hands, clasped on top of the table. The music thrummed in his eardrums – or maybe that was just his heart.

“Oh,” his father finally said, carefully.

“Yeah.”

He looked up, clenching his hands tighter, gritting his teeth down. Hades looked stunned, like Nico had dropped a firework in front of his face and set it off.

“Oh,” he said again. And then: “Good.”

“Good?”

Hades nodded, and when he repeated, “Good,” it was firm, sharp, like he’d made some sort of decision. “He makes you happy, doesn’t he?”

When the crowd of people on the dance floor shifted, Nico could still see Will messing around with Jason. He knew Will was uncomfortable; he’d told him about twenty times on the car ride here. Fancy clothes made him feel prickly, out of place in his own skin. He’d grown up with bare feet and hand-me-downs, so suit coats seemed to sit on his shoulders wrong, even when they fit perfectly.

He was so beautiful, though. God, so beautiful. Like noontime in the summer, when the sky is fifty different shades of blue –cobalt and cerulean and sapphire fading to pale, pale, pale, almost gray, right by the horizon line. Like the moments after a rainstorm when the air is damp but the sun is cracking through the clouds and dripping through like egg yolk, and the world tastes like soil and ozone. Like hands, knotted in hair, lips pressed to collarbones.

He looked up and caught Nico’s eye, just then, and beamed at him, and it felt like coming home.

“He makes me happy,” Nico told his father.

“Then you should be with him,” Hades said. “I won’t lie to you, Nico: I don’t really understand your lifestyle. But you’ve been through a lot – more than you ever should’ve had to go through – partially because of me. I want you to be happy. And if being with him makes you happy, then you should be with him.”

And that, Nico thought, was probably as good as he was going to get from his father.

“Thanks,” Nico whispered.

“You’re welcome.” Hades rolled back his shoulders, tilting his head from side to side to stretch. “I’m going to get some cake and look for your stepmother. Will you be here when I get back?”

Nico hesitated, and then shook his head. Hades looked unsurprised.

“Well, then, please say hello to William for me.” He turned to go, reaching up to adjust his tie. Before the crowd swallowed him, he glanced over his shoulder and added, “Oh, and, Nico? I’m glad you cut your hair. It looks much better this way.”

Nico stared after his retreating back, then snorted and shook his head. _I’m glad you cut your hair_. Un-fucking-believable.

 

He left the room after that, slipping out into the courtyard and down a quiet garden path. The sky seemed larger here than in Manhattan, somehow, stretched out to cover the entirety of the universe, the stars shook out across the inky blue like sugar. It smelled different, too, like fresh-mown grass and rainwater.

Nico liked the city, but he thought he could see the appeal of living somewhere like this, too.

“Nico?”

His eyes stayed trained on the sky as Hazel crossed the garden to stand next to him, her dress trailing along the ground behind her. Her hair was coming out of the elaborate updo she’d wrestled it into for the occasion, flyaway strands clouding her face. She reached over to take his hand.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”

There was a lot he wanted to say to her, but none of it would come out of his mouth. Words lodged in his throat. It was like choking, like drowning.

“I’m proud of you,” he finally said.

She laughed. “You sound so sad, oh, my God. Don’t _worry_ , Nico. I promised not to leave you, didn’t I? And I keep my promises.”

“You’re my little sister, I’m supposed to worry,” Nico said, affronted.

“Well, then, worry away, o brother mine. But I really am fine. I’m better than fine, actually.” Hazel paused, then said, “What were you and Dad talking about?”

“Lots of things. My haircut, mostly.”

She giggled. “Some things never change, I guess.”

_Some things never change._ Yeah, maybe that was true. But Nico sort of felt like _everything_ had change, like the memories he was built of had been taken apart and broken down and then reassembled, recreated.

Memories, moments, made of fabric and thread, or stained glass and steel, or sunlight. Time had brought Nico right here, to this moment, underneath the stars with his sister’s hand small in his own, and it wasn’t fate – Nico still didn’t believe in fate – but it was something.

Luck, maybe. Chance. A greater plan. A higher power. A single tipping point, shifting the balance. _Something_.

“I wish Bianca could’ve seen this,” Hazel said. “She loved weddings.”

“She probably would’ve done a better job painting your nails than Seph.”

“She really _was_ good at that. It was because she practiced on you.”

The air was chilly and fresh and the sky was infinite and thinking about Bianca made Nico smile a little, remembering her favorite kind of cake and her favorite fancy shoes and the way she used to make him sit while she put his hair into pigtails.

“We should go inside,” Nico said, finally. “You’re missing your own wedding.”

Hazel squeezed his hand and they walked in together.

 

He found Will sitting at a table with Jason and Piper. He’d loosened his tie, removed his coat, rolled his sleeves midway up his arms, and was laughing at something Piper had said, his face partially covered by his hand.

Watching Will laugh was still a lot like looking directly into the sun. _You blind me_ , Nico wanted to tell him, wanted to taste the words on his tongue, wanted to shape Will’s name in his mouth.

His forearms looked _good_ with his sleeves rolled up like that. Nico wanted to—

“Death Boy!”

He’d been spotted – probably caught staring – Will leapt to his feet and closed the distance between them, grabbing him by his upper arms enthusiastically.

Behind him Piper wiped frosting off the tip of Jason’s nose.

Nico said, “No.”

Will dropped Nico’s arms to cross his own over his chest. “You don’t even know what I was going to ask.”

“You were going to ask me to dance.”

Will pouted. “I was not.”

“You were, too.”

“Was not.”

“Were, too.”

“Was not.”

“What the hell were you going to ask, then?”

Will hesitated, and then muttered, “I was going to ask you to dance.”

There was a disappointed wrinkle between his eyebrows. It looked erroneous there, out of place. Nico wanted to kiss him, every inch of his face, make the wrinkle smooth out and the frown go away and the word ‘Nico’ lift on his tongue.

Instead, Nico sighed and nudged him with an elbow. “One dance. And then we’re going home, all right?”

Nico never liked dancing. But the smile Will gave him at the words ‘one dance’ was more than enough to compensate.

On the dance floor, colored lights send odd shadows flickering across Will’s face. His eyes looked lighter, his hair darker, his skin warm and smooth as he took Nico’s hand and tugged him closer. Their fingers fit together naturally, easily, like puzzle pieces, and Nico was positive that it must’ve been one of the universe’s greatest mysteries – how, after all this time, could Will still make him feel like his heart was beating in his throat, like his head was full of cotton, like all he needed was to be kissing him, touching him, pressed up against him with nothing in between.

Nico smoothed out the collar of the white button-up Will was wearing, letting his fingers trace Will’s shoulders, slide down his chest.

“I saw Percy Jackson,” Will whispered into Nico’s ear. “He told me to tell you hi.”

“How is he?”

“Good. He and Annabeth are going overseas to bring aid to impoverished countries.”

“Ha! Typical. It’s only a matter of time before he starts running around with the Superman symbol across his chest.”

Will smiled down at him, exceedingly gentle. Nico was no expert in these things, but, before meeting Will, he sure as hell had never expected to be looked at like _that_ : like he was something both miraculous and precious, beautifully improbable, built from some phenomenal cosmic accident.

It was, Nico thought, probably the same way he looked at Will.

“You do tend to pick friends with enormous hero complexes,” Will said, quiet, his hand tracing circles on the small of Nico’s back. “Maybe you’re closer to a superhero than you think you are.”

“Or maybe I’m trying to compensate for something.”

“Did you talk to your dad?”

“A bit?”

“Did it go all right?”

“Well, no civilizations crumbled and no natural disasters struck, so, yeah, I’d say it went all right.”

Will laughed. “Did you tell him about the air conditioning breaking in our apartment last week?”

“ _Fuck_ no. I’m not a fucking idiot, Solace.”

“He’d probably pay to fix it.”

“He’d probably make us move back to Seattle. And I think I’d rather spend the rest of my life in the middle of the crowd at the Republican National Convention than move back to Seattle.”

The music ended. Nico raised an eyebrow. “So? _Now_ can we leave?”

Will pressed a kiss to his cheek. “Now we can leave.”

 

When they arrived home, it was closer to morning than it was to night. The world was quiet, stained a million different grays and blacks and purples.

Will’s fingers jerked at the knotting of his tie, trying to remove it. Nico sighed and gently pushed his hands aside, undoing the knot with careful fingers and pulling the tie out from the collar. The fabric made a soft whispering sound, silky between Nico’s fingers.

“Was it really _that_ bad?” he asked.

“Awful,” Will assured him.

“The whole thing?”

Will sighed and pushed his hands through his hair, making it fluffier, more aggressively wavy. “I’m happy for Hazel and Frank, and it was nice to see everybody – especially Jason and Piper. And the cake was good. And you were there. But those damn clothes make me feel like a kid playing dress-up.”

Nico laughed and shrugged his own coat off, kicking his shoes to the side. “Well, you looked good.”

“Did I?” Will looked pleased. “Awesome.”

“You’d look better with them off, though, I think.”

Will’s eyes widened.

“Um,” he said.

Nico laughed and reached over to grab Will by the collar, tug him closer. “What? You’re the only one allowed to talk dirty?”

“I’m the only one who _tries_ to talk dirty,” Will squeaked.

Nico’s hands slid from his collar to the first button on his shirt. “Should we test my hypothesis, Doctor Solace?”

The tops of Will’s ears flared scarlet.

“Um.”

“I don’t know,” Nico continued, his voice slow, rumbling lower in his throat. “It’s going to be a difficult choice. See, you look _really_ good in this shirt.” Will reached up to knot his fingers in Nico’s hair, but Nico caught his hand before he could, turning to press an openmouthed kiss to Will’s palm.

Will’s breath caught.

“See, you look really good in white.” He trailed his tongue along the lines of Will’s palm, ran his lips along each of Will’s fingers, pausing on the pencil-callouses on his thumb and ring finger.

Will groaned softly as Nico’s lips moved upwards, along the line of his forearm. “And when you rolled your sleeves up,” Nico murmured against his skin, “I just about jumped you right then and there. Looking like that in public... You have no idea what you do to me.”

He bit down gently, nibbling his way up to where the sleeve of Will’s shirt began, around the crook of his elbow. Will’s breath was coming ragged, his skin burning hot.

When Nico pulled away, Will whimpered. He looked so good like this, hair rumpled, shirt open, eyes heavy-lidded and dripping with hunger, like he wanted to tie Nico down and take him right there.

Not tonight.

Nico smiled and reached up to trace a hand down the line of Will’s buttons, hesitating around his stomach.

“The shirt makes your muscles look good, too. Just tight enough, you know?”

“Nico—”

“Hmmm?” Nico’s hands were surprisingly steady as he undid just the top button, slipping his fingers inside Will’s collar to trace them on his skin.

“I – need—”

“We’re not done testing our hypothesis, Doctor Solace. It would be a shame to have to stop the experiment now.”

Will made a noise that sounded like, “ _Hnnng_.”

Nico rolled his eyes and continued trailing his hands down Will’s chest, opening his shirt with careful fingers, slowly, button by button.

When it was open, Will yanked it off impatiently, and Nico reached out to trace along Will’s muscles, around a nipple, down the smooth, deliberate lines of his abdomen. He leaned forward to kiss the skin, to run his tongue along Will’s freckled shoulders, to lick a path down his stomach to the soft, downy line of hair leading down into his pants.

“Maybe I should wear that stupid outfit more often,” Will muttered.

Nico laughed and hooked his fingers in Will’s belt, brushing along his hipbones, pushing him backwards, towards the bed. Nico pushed him down, leaning down to nip at an earlobe and whisper, “You’re still a bit overdressed, I think.”

The belt was next, undone and discarded just like the tie. Nico palmed Will through his pants and laughed softly, breathlessly, when Will bucked up into his hand.

He leaned down to murmur, against Will’s mouth, “Lube?”

“B—bedside table. Oh, Jesus _Christ_ , Nico—”

“Condoms?”

“Box next to it.”

“Take your pants off.”

Will was painfully hard through his boxer shorts and Nico wanted to kiss him there, too, wanted to take him into his mouth and watch Will squirm underneath him. But his own erection was getting a little painful. He discarded his own clothes, tugged the offending fabric away from his skin, and, as he wet his hands with lube and prepped the both of them, watched as Will’s eyes fluttered shut and his mouth wordlessly shaped Nico’s name, he thought this way was better.

“Ready?”

“Ah—ah, oh, my God, Nico, _please_ , I need—”

Will was deliciously warm, and they moved together like music, like a symphony, like all the little, wonderful mistakes in the world coming together in one glorious moment. They came together, Will half-moaning-half-screaming and Nico whispering Will’s name, over and over and over again.

Afterwards, Will mouth tasted like sweat and wedding cake when he kissed Nico gently, slowly.

“Were you just really thirsty, or did the clothes actually look that good?”

“They actually looked that good,” Nico assured him. “I’m not just using you for your body.”

Will snickered and then stretched. Nico watched him, the way his muscles shifted underneath his skin.

“I love you, you know,” he said.

Will grinned at him. “Yeah, I know.”

 

The interesting thing about time is its consistency.

Lives are a composite made up of moments – tiny, seemingly insignificant events that pile up, one on top of another, until they’ve formed the shape of a human. Time is pliable, in a constant state of flux. One decision, one factor, is enough to tip the balance. If the music wasn’t too loud. If the girl hadn’t been cheating. If the apartments didn’t share a wall. If Olympus University didn’t offer a great pre-med program as well as have a reputation for churning out classical scholars by the busload.

If biology was an easier class. If the professor was less strict.

If the car hadn’t run a red light.

Do you see? Time depends, above all things, on us. And Nico di Angelo still did not believe in fate. But he _did_ believe in something – in blue eyes and musical laughter and being woken in the mornings by a bad rendition of ‘Go the Distance.’ He believed in knotted hands and knotted limbs and knotted hair. The composite of moments that made up Nico’s life was tinged with yellow-golden-sunlight. It was melodic, symphonic. Still neither organized nor neat, but he’d never been good at either of those things.

There was nothing particularly _particular_ about the choices Nico made that led him to Will Solace.

They changed things, though. Of course they did.

(There it is again, finally, the concluding sentence, the most singularly interesting thing about time: every choice does.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so, we come to the end.  
> I want to preface this by apologizing - this chapter took me FOREVER to write, and now I'm finishing it instead of studying for finals because I am an idiot (*crosses fingers that it was worth it*).  
> I also want to sincerely thank each and every single one of you for reading this, for leaving kudos, and for commenting. I want so badly to be able to reply to every comment on here, but since I am really lacking in the time, please just be assured that I have read ALL OF THEM and nothing means more to me than hearing what you have to say. I appreciate every word.  
> Thank you for sticking with me. It's been a crazy couple months, and I've had so much fun writing this! I hope you had fun reading it, too.


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